Forgot Where It Was

Rebuilding the Francis Scott Key bridge...

Living here in Florida we forget about government that doesn't just roll up its sleeves and get to work.

That there's places where the reality is what the press estimates for how long it will take to rebuild, if it ever happens at all.

Florida had a similar bridge disaster in 1980.

The current Sunshine Skyway bridge was built from 1983 to 1987 and the undamaged half of the old Skyway bridge was demolished in 1990.

Shipping traffic was restored before the end of 1980.

I am reminded about the estimates to restore a single tiny bridge after Hurricane Ian being in the ten year range.

That bridge had traffic on it in a couple of months.  What's keeping things from being fixed down there, now, is endless delays from insurance companies trying to avoid paying out.

I contrast that to Katrina...  It's my understanding there's still places around NOLA that are untouched since that day and unlikely to ever be fixed.

Sad.

Back to the FSK Bridge.

Did you know it was supposed to be a tunnel?

Did you know that this exact disaster was predicted before it was built?

Did you know, after the Skyway collapse, studies were done about putting in protective measures to prevent such a collapse?

Let's see what they do.

There's a part of me that thinks that America is still great and mere engineering problems are not problems to our indomitable spirit; get out of our way for a moment and watch us do grand things!

There's another part that just knows that getting in the way of American exceptionalism is the fucking goal of too many people.