Resilient Bridges Needed, but Will They Be Built?

Disaster mitigation takes many forms, but how many organizations really invest in it? See this Seattle Times article, Shake, rattle — and drive: WSDOT builds flexible bridge to survive earthquakes unscathed that speaks to the need to construct bridges beyond the simple "life safety" standard that exists now, in order to ensure that the bridge remains functional post-earthquake.

These two techniques for making bridges more resilient are new to me — but then I'm not a bridge engineer. I just know that even if one mainline bridge falls down on I-5 or our other two major north-south highways in the Puget Sound Region "we'll be toast." Perhaps an op-ed that I submitted recently will be published tomorrow (I have not heard back from the paper) in which I speak to the significant economic and people disruptions that will happen in that event. 

Unfortunately, what I see happening is that people and organizations are not interested in investing an additional 5 percent in making a building or bridge more resilient. They'd rather save the money and do ... with it. Just look at the Un-reinforced Masonry (URM) building hazards that exist and that no one is addressing in any systematic way. Those structures will have to fall down first, then we'll clear the rubble and the bodies and build anew. 

Allen Alston shared the link above.