Two Mile Island

This shocking development was the top story in the Northeast today. A nearly two mile section of I-95 was completely shut down for emergency repairs because of a cracked support column, and the headaches to commuters may continue for two to four days.

Wow. Breaking news, that. One of the 6007 structurally deficient bridges in Pennsylvania is actually being repaired. I guess it's the nearly 200,000 inconvenienced drivers that use the roadway who make it a story. The various news agencies managed to interview most of the gridlocked victims who all kept repeating the same word -- Nightmare.

Well at least we all agree on something. The collapse of our Nation's infrastructure from neglect and indifference is definitely a nightmare. That people lost their lives in the Minnesota bridge collapse and our government didn't launch into a spending frenzy to protect its citizens is a nightmare. Again we're back to a place where the Federal government needs to, as PA Governor Ed Rendell says, "get off their butts and institute a nationwide plan to repair our infrastructure".

Dena responded to Here's Mud In Your I with two links that warrant a closer look. As reported by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) -- Here are the 2005 grades for the Infrastructure Report. And here is the Updated 2008 Action Plan. Besides the overall poor grade of D, note the dollar figure needed over the next five years to correct the issues in all of the fifteen Subject areas: $1.6 Trillion.

We've spent nearly twice that in the last five years in the Middle East. I'm not suggesting I have a grand plan for budgeting the war, but I think we need to figure out how to make sure our troops get what they need to finish cleaning up the mess we've made while keeping our own country from falling into disrepair. I'd just like to see a little more balanced perspective. As important as what we're doing over in Iraq may be, it's not more important than maintaining the vital systems of our own country.

My fear is that this will be just another reactive phase with an all too brief duration as agencies and officials scamper about in an effort to show us that they're really concerned and are doing something about this situation. Then the bridge will be repaired, the hype will die down and everyone will go back to their wait-and-see routine until the next piece of infrastructure cracks, falls down, or injures people -- at which time the reactive phase will restart all over again.

Until then, I'm going to check the news again for an aerial image of the barren stretch of I-95 next to the motionless sea of diverted traffic that's still snaking around it. It's like a scene from The Day The Earth Stood Still and that's one of my favorite movies.