A great report on what actually involves a bridge inspection done with the technology and professional experience.
Considering how long it took and the limited number of professionals and technology available, it is imperative that we soon install the monitors now available.
Crucial steel pins get ultrasound test
By Tony Bizjak - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Tuesday, October 2, 2007
He captains a small "snooper" bucket hinged to a mechanical arm, creeping through the night from girder to girder, peering, touching, testing.
He's a bridge inspector on a hunt for cracks in the frameworks of bridges -- a job under a sharp spotlight itself after the collapse this summer of a major bridge in Minneapolis prompted questions about inspections.
Caltrans officials repeatedly have said California bridges are safe -- that their inspection program is solid.
Some politicians want a closer look, however. State Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, head of the Senate transportation committee, points out that the Minneapolis bridge was inspected just months before it collapsed.
The cause of that collapse remains under investigation.
Lowenthal, whose staff is reviewing Caltrans' bridge inspection program, questions the agency's practice of "visual" inspections on most bridges, where workers walk the bridge and view it from underneath, sometimes with binoculars.
A 1998 Federal Highway Administration study using 49 inspectors from around the country found that results from visual inspections vary widely.
