Third World America - Arianna Huffington [40]
Down in the river, towboat captain William Joe Dedmon was pushing two barges when he suffered an attack of cardiac arrhythmia, and the barges ended up hitting the bridge’s support.66 Up above, a six-hundred-foot section of the bridge suddenly gave way—and a dozen cars, two tractor-trailer rigs, and a horse trailer plunged seventy-five feet into the water below.67
In an instant, the Arkansas River turned into a graveyard—one littered with concrete slabs, diapers, dead horses, and broken car seats.68 Fourteen people died that day, including a three-year-old girl, and scores more were injured. “Officials set up a morgue inside city hall,” the Bowling Green Daily News reported.69 “Victims’ families were told to go to the community center in Gore, on the other side of the river.” Because of the high and murky water, divers had a hard time retrieving the dead from the cars that were submerged and stacked on top of one another in the river’s fast currents.
Six years later, one quarter of Oklahoma’s bridges still needed overhaul or replacement. Indeed, the state had the dubious distinction of leading the nation in the percentage of structurally deficient bridges.70 And Oklahoma is far from alone. In August 2007, the Interstate 35W steel truss bridge over the Mississippi in downtown Minneapolis collapsed during evening rush hour, killing 13 and injuring 145.71 The bridge had been inspected each year by the state’s Department of Transportation, but clearly the patchwork repairs were not sufficient.72
All across the country, patch and pray remains the order of the day … until the next bridge comes falling down. How many more will it take—and how many more people have to die—before a more serious effort is made?
AMERICA’S DAMS: DAMNED IF WE DON’T FIX THEM
We’ve seen similar tragedies with America’s dams.
On March 16, 2006, the Ka Loko Dam in Kilauea, Hawaii, collapsed.73 “Seven people died when the Ka Loko Dam breached after weeks of heavy rain, sending 1.6 million tons of water downstream,” the Honolulu Star Bulletin reported. Among the dead were a child and a woman eight months pregnant. The breach created an ecological disaster of torn-up streams, reefs, and coastal waterways.74 The Ka Loko Dam was not considered a “high-hazard dam.” It was, however, like all dams, supposed to be regularly inspected. According to Hawaii congresswoman Mazie Hirono, it was not.75
Dams are a vital part of America’s infrastructure. They help provide water for drinking, irrigation, and agriculture, generate much-needed power, and offer protection from floods.
Yet our dams are growing old. There are more than 85,000 dams in America—and the average age is fifty-one years old.76 At the same time, more and more people are moving into developments located below dams that require significantly greater safety standards—but we’ve had a hard time keeping up with the increase in these so-called high-hazard dams. Indeed, we are falling further and further behind. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, “Over the past six years, for every deficient, high hazard potential dam repaired, nearly two more were declared deficient.”
It would take $12.5 billion over the next five years to properly upgrade our nation’s dams.77 The estimated spending on dams over that time is $5.05 billion—a projected shortfall of $7.45 billion. Plus, of our 85,000 dams, the federal government regulates fewer than 10,000.78 The rest are the responsibility of the states—most of which are facing large budget deficits. For example, the ASCE reports that in 2007 Texas had “only seven engineers with an annual budget of only $435,000 to regulate more than 7,500 dams. Worse still, Alabama does not have a dam safety program despite the fact that there are more than 2,000 dams in the state.”
In 2007, during congressional