Two months after National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Mark Rosenker was himself accused of distortions (Daily Mole, Oberstar) over the role of gusset plates in the I-35W bridge collapse, the Minnesota Department of Transportation closed St. Cloud’s DeSoto Bridge “due to gusset plate distortions.”

The DeSoto Bridge on Highway 23, a close cousin in design to the I-35W bridge that collapsed in August 2007, had already had its “gusset plate review completed,” according to a MNDOT list of truss bridges slated for load rating tests in the wake of the I-35W collapse. An emergency inspection of the St. Cloud bridge just two days after I-35W fell also turned up nothing. But Thursday afternoon, inspectors looking for corrosion saw quarter-inch bends in DeSoto’s gusset plates. Now MNDOT says it will replace the bridge within two years, five years ahead of schedule. Lost in the buzz over another crippled truss bridge and the NTSB’s refusal to hold a public hearing on the 35W collapse was Monday’s release of NTSB reports indicating that the resurfacing contractor had piled tons of construction materials on two of the I-35W bridge’s weakest points (PDF).
Continued: Click “Read more”Unusual for a highway bridge, St. Cloud’s 1959 DeSoto Bridge is painted black. In 1966 the Rolling Stones followed their hit song “19th Nervous Breakdown” with the single “Paint It, Black” — which also appeared that year on their LP Aftermath.

Coincidence?

In the aftermath of Minnesota’s second bridge breakdown, several leading figures in the saga nervously offered the Minnesota Monitor their favorite lyrics from “Paint It, Black”:

  Governor Tim Pawlenty: “I could not foresee this thing happening to you”

Acting MNDOT Commissioner Bob McFarlin: “I see a line of cars and they’re all painted black”

Former MNDOT Commissioner Carol Molnau: “Maybe then I’ll fade away and not have to face the facts”