Tragedy

Yesterday Angie, Ronnie, and I started our day at the memorial for the Oklahoma City federal building bombing. We spent considerable time walking around and taking in the incredible devastation as well as reflecting on the loss of life.

Several hours later as we were driving into San Antonio for Liz’s basic training graduation weekend, I received a call from Jamie telling me about the bridge collapse. Basically, we have been glued to CNN ever since.

As normal human beings we are shocked. It is hard to comprehend how this happens so close to home. We worry about our friends and relatives who might have been on the bridge. We reflect back on the last time we drove across the bridge (last Sunday picking Ronnie up from baseball camp).

As engineers we are frightfully reminded of the tremendous importance of our responsibility to society. It is really hard to know what went wrong. In our culture there seems to be a need for blame and finger pointing. Engineers are going to be in the crosshairs on this incident. Don’t be surprised if you feel some shame or guilt by association. It is normal – I feel it. However, it is not well placed.

I do not believe that this will prove to be negligence on the part of the design team nor the inspection engineers. Remember this bridge was designed and built 40 years ago, under what I am sure were acceptable standards at the time. The negligence here is a responsibility as a country to keep its infrastructure safe. Our interstate was built in a relatively short period of time (a great engineering feat), but a relatively long time ago. This infrastructure failure is going to be repeated on interstate bridges across the country that are nearing this same age and usage.

TBL: As engineers we are sobered when the public for whom we are responsible suffer due to a failure of an engineered structure.