NTSB: I-5 Bridge Collapse is Wake-up Call for Entire Country

NTSB says Washington state bridge collapse is wake-up call for entire country

The collapse of an Interstate highway bridge in northern Washington state is a wake-up call for the entire nation, the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board says. Investigators need to find out what happened at the I-5 span 60 miles north of Seattle and if it could be repeated at similar bridges around the country, Debbie Hersman said Saturday.

"This is a really significant event and we need to learn from it, not just in Washington but around the country," Hersman said after taking a boat ride on the Skagit River below the dramatic scene where a truck bumped against the steel framework, collapsing the bridge and sending two vehicles and three people falling into the chilly water. "At the end of the day it's about preventing an accident like this," she said.

As Yogi Berra once said, "It's Déjà vu all over again!". Doesn't this seem familiar somehow? Return with me to 2011. President Barack Hussein Obama:

"According to the Republican budget that was passed, for example, we would have to eliminate transportation funding by a third. We’d have to cut transporting funding by a third. You remember when that bridge in Minnesota collapsed with all those people on it? And there was a big hue and cry: How can this happen in America? Well, the National Society of Engineers, they’ve looked around and they give us a 'D' when it comes to infrastructure. Our roads, our bridges, our sewer systems are all deteriorating."

"We don’t even have a serious high-speed rail infrastructure in this country," Obama continued. "Our broadband lines are slower than places like South Korea. Well, so what, we cut transportation by another third, and what’s going to happen to America? We’re just going to have potholes everywhere? We’re just going to have bridges collapsing everywhere?"

And, of course, this was after the trillion dollars added to the budget in 2009 to shore up our infrastructure with those "shovel ready jobs" he admitted later weren't quite so "shovel ready", and an additional trillion dollars a year in the baseline budget for 2010 and 2011.

So, let's get the timeline straight:

*2007: A bridge collapses in Minnesota, which Obama blames on lack of federal spending. (Had he bothered to read the NTSB's report, he might have informed himself better.)

“The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was the inadequate load capacity, due to a design error,” the NTSB states in its 2008 report on the incident.

In fact, the NTSB reported that on the day of the collapse, the bridge was in the process of being refurbished, further contradicting Obama’s claim that the collapse was evidence of a lack of infrastructure spending. “On the day of the collapse, roadway work was underway on the I35W bridge, and four of the eight travel lanes (two outside lanes northbound and two inside lanes southbound) were closed to traffic,” reads the NTSB report.

* 2008: Candidate Barack Obama, Toledo OH:

"We'll create 2 million jobs by rebuilding our crumbling roads, schools and bridges."

(Raise your hand if you remember Obama creating 2 million jobs.)

*2009: A trillion dollar stimulus is implemented, presumably to rebuild crumbling roads, schools and bridges.

*2010: Because of Baseline budgeting, the trillion dollars spent as "stimulus" in 2009 now becomes a part of the federal budget baseline. That means in every year that Obama has been in office, he has had an addition trillion dollars a yar to spend along with the trillions in debt he's racked up.

*2011: Another additional trillion dollars. Obama says we have to spend more to prevent crumbling bridges.


*2012: Another additional trillion dollars


*2013: Another additional trillion dollars

Five trillion additional dollars above what the Bush administration had to spend, plus trillions more in deficit spending, and now, Sacré Bleu! We need to wake up to the fact that our bridges are in need of repair! Where has this administration been for the last five years?

May I make a modest suggestion? We hire George Hussein Onyango Obama, the fellow who's living in a hut for less than twenty dollars a year, to inspect and repair all our bridges. We could maybe double his salary and throw in Obamacare. He could go around the country with a big wrench and tighten all the loose bolts he finds.

Some might say that he isn't competent to do the job. Well, that hasn't stopped his brother!

Cross posted at LCR.