1 confirmed dead, 1 injured in I-75 overpass collapse

"Crews are working now to determine a plan of action to remove the worker," Cincinnati police said shortly after midnight. "It will be a long operation." A second person -- a semi-tractor trailer driver -- has minor injuries because of the crash. That driver was taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. Dispatchers called it a "major" collapse. Southbound I-75 could be closed for two days, the city tweeted: "Plan ahead, leave early, expect delays."

Looks like this happened a few hours ago in Cincinnati. Just giving you a heads up if need to travel through there. There are also pictures and a video at THIS LINK

a reply to: onehuman

The infrastructure of the US roads and highways is still crumbling, literally! I expect to see a lot of these types of stories in the future. If it isn't broke, don't fix it until people die and it is broken...

a reply to: InFriNiTee
I agree, there are a lot of bridges I sort of hold my breath as I go over them here in Rhode Island. They can't even fix a pot hole correctly, I can imagine how they deal with a real engineering problem

21 point rundown on the rundown level of US Infrastructure...

theeconomiccollapseblog.com...

#1 The American Society of Civil Engineers has given America’s crumbling infrastructure an overall grade of D.

#2 There are simply not enough roads in the United States today. Each year, traffic jams cost the commuters of America 4.2 billion hours and about 2.8 million gallons of gasoline.

#3 It is being projected that Americans will spend an average of 160 hours stuck in traffic annually by the year 2035.

#4 Approximately one-third of all roads in the United States are in substandard condition.

#5 Close to a third of all highway fatalities are due “to substandard road conditions, obsolete road designs, or roadside hazards.”

#6 One out of every four bridges in America either carries more traffic than originally intended or is in need of repair.

#7 Repairing all of the bridges in the United States that need repair would take approximately 140 billion dollars.

#8 According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, our decaying transportation system costs the U.S. economy about 78 billion dollars annually in lost time and fuel.

#9 All over America, asphalt roads are being ground up and are being replaced with gravel roads because they are cheaper to maintain. The state of South Dakota has transformed over 100 miles of asphalt roads into gravel roads, and 38 out of the 83 counties in the state of Michigan have transformed at least some of their asphalt roads into gravel roads.

#10 There are 4,095 dams in the United States that are at risk of failure. That number has risen by more than 100 percent since 1999.

#11 Of all the dam failures that have happened in the United States since 1874, a third of them have happened during the past decade.

#12 Close to half of all U.S. households do not have access to bus or rail transit.

#13 Our aging sewer systems spill more than a trillion gallons of untreated sewage every single year. The cost of cleaning up that sewage each year is estimated to be greater than 50 billion dollars.

#14 It is estimated that rolling blackouts and inefficiencies in the U.S. electrical grid cost the U.S. economy approximately 80 billion dollars a year.

#15 It is being projected that by the year 2020 every single major container port in the United States will be handling at least double the volume that it was originally designed to handle.

#16 All across the United States, conditions at many of our state parks, recreation areas and historic sites are deplorable at best. Some states have backlogs of repair projects that are now over a billion dollars long…

#17 Today, the U.S. spends about 2.4 percent of GDP on infrastructure. Meanwhile, China spends about 9 percent of GDP on infrastructure.

#18 In the United States today, approximately 16 percent of our construction workers are unemployed.

#19 China has plans to build 55,000 miles of highways by the year 2020. If all of those roads were put end to end, it would be longer than the total length of the entire U.S. interstate system.

#20 The World Economic Forum ranks U.S. infrastructure 23rd in the world, and we fall a little bit farther behind the rest of the developed world every single day.

#21 It has been projected that it would take 2.2 trillion dollars over the next 5 years just to repair our existing infrastructure. That does not even include a single penny for badly needed new infrastructure.

If we could just get them to divert a few trillion from the war budget, or the offshore loot and steal budget.

www.marketoracle.co.uk...

a reply to: Ex_MislTech

If this is true...

#5 Close to a third of all highway fatalities are due “to substandard road conditions, obsolete road designs, or roadside hazards.”

Then more people die each year due to Congress refusing to raise up our infrastructure than died in 9/11.
I would have to see the statistics used for the above statement, but in 2012, the traffic fatalities were numbered at 33,561. Little under a third would be approximately 10,000 people. Source However, I must say I did not see a category for infrastructure related deaths in this document as quoted.

peace,
AB

Well now this is going to play havoc with my week, I have meetings there over two days this week. This is going to be a cluster traffic is already pretty horrid.

Sorry to disappoint the "infrastructure" crowd, but, the overpass was in the process of being torn down when it collapsed. The person who was killed was a construction worker.

a reply to: JIMC5499
Even though this one is being torn down, you still can't deny there aren't thousands of roads and bridges across the country that are sorely in need of some serious attention. While I don't know the real facts and numbers on fatalities caused form these degradation of infrastructure, even a handful are too many. I'm sure there are some loved one pretty upset they may have lost a loved one becuase something hadn't been fixed properly as it should be.

a reply to: onehuman

True, but the point that this was an accident that happened while it was being torn down is a major point that is relevant to the sad story and to the conversation as a whole.

Plus, to those complaining about congress--this overpass, unless I'm mistaken, does not fall under federal control as it's either a city, county, or state road. Maybe there is federal funding because it's an overpass, but I'm ignorant to that fact if it is so.

a reply to: onehuman

I agree with you. I don't know where you live, I live in Western Pennsylvania. We have had several bridges replaced in my area and are in the process of replacing more of them. I'm actually pretty happy with the way things are going, even if it does result in doubling my time to drive to work.