Bailey Bridges in an Emergency and Non-Emergency

While I was an Airborne, Ranger Infantry, my first assignment at Fort Hood, Texas, had me in the 17th Engineer Battalion as a platoon leader. It was there that I was introduced to the Bailey Bridge  We used these extensively for crossing dry gaps. For rivers and lakes we used a floating pontoon system (M4T6) style of bridge.

While the Bailey Bridge was designed for the military in World War II, they have also seen extensive use in civilian contexts, typically to replace a bridge that has been washed out or otherwise damaged in a disaster. However, I've become aware of transportation agencies using them to replace failing bridges. 

This latter use is somewhat disturbing. While you can say that using the Bailey Bridge to take care of an issue is appropriate, what it really evokes is the sign of the times and the failure to maintain our critical infrastructure and also have a timely replacement program in place.  

I believe that Washington State Department of Transportation has two sets of bridges that are currently deployed to replace bridges that were deemed unsafe and yet not replaced. I suppose that in a disaster, these deployed bridges can be moved to a more critical need, but ideally they should be in storage and being only used for emergency purposes.  

Remember this, critical infrastructure is failing every day, one piece at a time.