Centerpieces

Journalists from TV, radio, newspaper and online launched big investigations into bridge safety just one day after the Minneapolis bridge collapse. Seldom have I seen a national story spark a local examination the way this one has. And it's no wonder, considering there are 756 steel-deck truss bridges across America like the one that collapsed Wednesday.

Later today the federal transportation department will name those bridges. This will certainly be a story for many of you. Check here for the update.

Click here to the see this morning's front pages of more than 500 newspapers. Many of them include a bridge story on the front page above the fold.

MSNBC has now posted details on every U.S. bridge carrying at least 10,000 vehicles a day that has been rated as "structurally deficient" or "functionally obsolete."

To use the site:

• Choose a state on the map.

• Scroll down below the numbers to "Click here to see major state bridges on list."

MSNBC provides a background story to go with the data.

The LA Times' story this morning called the Minneapolis bridge design a "house of cards" and "an all-or-nothing design." The paper goes on to include a collection of elaborate and extremely useful Flash graphics to explain how the collapse occurred, how the California bridges measure up and how bridges like the one that fell are built (using a series of triangles). The package also includes a PDF of state bridge inspections. Outstanding.

The Star Tribune in Minneapolis also turned to interactive graphics to explain the story. The Star Tribune titled its graphic "A bridge in trouble." The paper and online site take you point-by-point with a detailed graphic of the bridge. Yes-yes-yes. Great explanatory journalism.

The (St. Paul, Minn.) Pioneer Press asks the best questions of the day. If this bridge had been inspected, and deemed safe, then how can we trust the inspection system? Can you trust that bridges in your community that are being called safe really are safe?

The paper says:

The Interstate 35W bridge that collapsed Wednesday was not just "structurally deficient," it was among the 100 worst heavily used bridges in the country.

It was also deemed perfectly safe.

How this bridge could have both labels at the same time seems to defy logic. But the contradiction goes to the heart of a complicated national bridge inspection program meant to ensure we can safely drive across the country's 709,000 bridges every day.

Wednesday's tragedy has thrown that program, which relies primarily on visual inspections, into serious question.

KARE11 in Minneapolis also raises the question of whether the standards for our bridge safety are too low. The station pointedly asks why pave over a bridge that needed replacement.  Here is the KARE11 story posted on the Web site of KXAS-TV in Dallas. (The video may be slow to play due to heavy traffic.)

I really think this is a core story for us to examine. What do terms like "structurally deficient" really mean? How can we trust any of the bridge safety reports when this bridge was deemed to be safe — but clearly was not. I saw many reports this morning quoting state and federal officials who said their bridges were safe, but few reporters pressed them on how they could be so certain of that.

Some journalists who work in cities where there are bridges that cross the Mississippi River (as did the bridge that collapsed), took an in-depth look at bridge safety. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that inspectors spread out to inspect all high-volume bridges in Missouri and Illinois yesterday and found no obvious problems. But as I point out in today's Al's Morning Meeting column, visual inspections are inconsistent, and 60 percent of the inspectors using just visual inspections missed problems.

I wanted you to see an interesting Web-page design on KSTP-TV's Web site. They are using a vertical cascade of photos. All of the Minneapolis stations — KARE11, WCCO-TV, KSTP and KMSP-TV — have tons of video footage on their site, including live coverage from their air. One of the strangest pieces is KSTP's interview with ABC's Charles Gibson, who is riding in a helicopter while talking live to the local anchors about all of the bridge collapses he has covered.

The Washington Post takes a national and local view of the story in a package of pieces, saying:

The bridge that lies crumpled in the Mississippi River is the latest link to fail in a national highway system rapidly deteriorating under the strain of ever-increasing traffic volume and inadequate upkeep, transportation experts said yesterday.

The Post included this fairly sobering assessment:

"A majority of the interstate bridges in this country are [at the end of] service life," said Ronaldo T. "Nick" Nicholson, the Virginia Department of Transportation's manager for the Woodrow Wilson Bridge project. "In Minnesota, they were trying to extend the life rather than replace it."

The New York Times includes five stories on bridge safety and the Minneapolis collapse. One of the most interesting online pieces is an interactive graphic explaining the critical parts of the Minnesota bridge. I found this graphic so useful because I had heard about the school bus that fell 50 feet, but I couldn't understand where it was when the bridge collapsed until I saw this graphic. Just think how useful a graphic like this would be to plot interviews that you do with survivors. You could map the interviews on the graph.

Today's St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times headlines "Are our bridges safe?" and points out that "five area spans are flagged as poor." The Orlando Sentinel identified the "worst bridges in Central Florida."

Texas media recognized that their state has one of the highest bridge populations in the country. WFAA-TV in Dallas, for example, listed the most deficient bridges.

The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky., an Ohio River city, quoted state officials as saying all bridges in the state were safe enough to travel, despite the fact that "27 percent of Kentucky's 15,664 bridges, and 20 percent of Indiana's 20,255 bridges were either 'structurally deficient' or 'functionally obsolete.' "

In another Ohio River city, The Cincinnati Enquirer ran a piece about how embedding sensors in bridges can warn of impending problems. Why don't all major bridges use these?

The paper reports:

Embedded sensors can warn when bridges are failing, according to a University of Cincinnati engineering expert who worked on a real-time monitoring system used on one bridge on the Ronald Reagan Highway since 1997.

James Swanson, an associate professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, uses the "Weigh-in-Motion" (WIM) to monitor the speed and weight of passing traffic and calculate the ability of the structure to carry the load.

Created at UC's Infrastructure Institute, the sensors are designed to stay in place for the life of a bridge and provide what Swanson called "health monitoring." The system was first used on the Reagan highway bridge over Hamilton Avenue.

WTOP Radio in Washington, D.C, explains how the sensors work and even what they look like.

There may be no stronger state public radio network than Minnesota Public Radio. MPR has been all over this story. I especially liked this thoughtful piece on the economic cost of the collapse.

MPR includes a section called "Wavelengths," in which everyday people talk about how they captured photos and video of the collapse and aftermath. 

MPR also includes an audio collection called "Witnesses to a Disaster." These first-person accounts are a great way for a radio station to archive its best sound bites. I also have never seen a newsroom ask the public for their best Web resources about bridge safety as MPR did.

NPR went back in time to the 1967 Silver Bridge collapse in West Virginia, which changed the way the feds think of bridge safety and inspections. In another story, NPR explained what causes most bridge collapses: Mother Nature. NPR reports:

That's the main message from scientists who conducted a massive study of why bridges fail in the United States. The researchers say floods were responsible for more than half of recent bridge failures; fewer bridges were toppled or disabled by factors such as overloading, deterioration, or design flaws.

Radio has been vital to people near the Twin Cities who have to figure out new ways to get to where they are going. Stations, of course, stream their latest traffic information online.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution focused on the money issue of rebuilding the many bridges that are in bad shape.

KNXV in Phoenix traveled along with a bridge inspector yesterday to see how he does the inspections. The station also provided a bridge-by-bridge inspection summary on bridges in Maricopa County.

I was so pleased to see NBC News turn to retired correspondent Robert Hager (who has taught with us here at The Poynter Institute). Nobody on TV tops Hager in ability to explain transportation safety stories. Last night he explained how investigators will do their work to piece together the Minneapolis bridge.

Seattle is a city of bridges. As The Seattle Times points out, voters will soon get a chance to spend more money on bridges, but there is a catch given the news of late:

A $14.5 billion roads package headed for the November ballot would help repair or replace a few of the region's vulnerable bridges — including the Highway 520 floating bridge.

But most of the cash would be earmarked for expanding highways and would not touch other local bridges in need of repair.

If your Web site, station, newspaper or magazine provided what you think is great investigative, unique or insightful coverage, please drop a note and a link in the reader feedback section of this column.

I would especially like to hear from radio stations and international journalists who found innovative ways of covering this story.