Washington State Bridge Collapse Investigation

The millions of Americans planning to travel this holiday weekend will likely think twice about the safety of the roads and bridges. This of course following that shocking scene of a bridge collapse... See More

The millions of Americans planning to travel this holiday weekend will likely think twice about the safety of the roads and bridges. This of course following that shocking scene of a bridge collapse in Washington State earlier this week that plunged drivers and their cars into the water. And -- investigators looking to the cause of the collapse it's raising serious questions about the nation's infrastructure. ABC's David Curley is in Washington DC with outside of the story David. Good morning -- -- about one in ten of -- nearly one in ten of us will be on the road this holiday weekend and there will be concerns about bridges like this one. More than 67000. In our country that have a designation that is concerning. Look at this that mad dash through the Atlantic beach for Memorial Day families starting this summer in the car. More than 31 million who will pay a little more for gas -- And they may be thinking about these pictures of that bridge that collapsed in Washington State sending two cars into the river below. No official cause but a truck did -- one of the overhead steel girders. A reminder that many of our bridges are poorly rated. In fact every day Americans make 200 million trips across what are called structurally deficient bridges that's one out of every nine bridges. Part of each of those bridges in poor condition. Assistant -- a probably seen a lot of our bridges we took a look at one Washington DC's key bridge with a former government investigator. We could see some concrete ready to fall away. Structurally deficient Sally is gonna fall down but that's not the case it just means that there's a -- back. This being watched over time as they do inspections. The collapse of the Minneapolis bridge nearly six years ago which killed thirteen is a case in point. The I 35 bridge was structurally deficient but that didn't cause the collapse it was a design flaw that finally led to failure. With the underlying. Reinforcement steel and the road and we have -- potential problem many of our bridges are old some rusty. Despite the fact that we have an older infrastructure. If the inspector general said. I agree wholeheartedly that bridges don't collapse -- and especially from structural problems corrosion or things like that. Despite that America's civil engineers are asking that 60% more money be spent so that we can take bridges like this off that -- Structurally deficient.