Wednesday, Dec. 09, 2009

Disasters waiting to occur

After the second fatal fall from a Beltline bridge over Crabtree Creek, state transportation officials ordered a review of all the state's 17,000 bridges.

And Raleigh leaders have asked the state Department of Transportation to look for other unsafe bridges here.

Meanwhile, we've already done a quick survey for you.

Reporter Ray Martin and I hopped into my VW Jetta last week and toured Raleigh's 24-mile Beltline loop, looking for other bridges with narrow gaps.

Our finding: The inspectors won't have to go far to locate another structure like the bridge of death over Crabtree Creek near Crabtree Valley.

Just 0.3-mile east of it, the Beltline bridge over Yadkin Drive is almost identical, with a gap of several feet between the two directions of travel - except the drop isn't as far, and might be more survivable.

Across the Beltline oval near the U.S. 64 Bypass, another Interstate 440 bridge over Crabtree Creek features what looks like a narrow gap between its parallel pieces.

The DOT has decided to put up a second fence at the bridge where Lee Eames Jr. lost his life two weeks ago. It will match one on the other side, where Todd Fletcher fell to his death four years ago.

Both men had stopped to help people involved in nighttime wrecks in an area with no overhead highway lights.

Both apparently assumed when they hopped over the bridge's inside barrier that there was concrete on the other side, instead of only air.

In both cases, it took their deaths to add safeguards.

And that might not change.

Asked about the two other similar bridges, Terry Gibson, the state's highway administrator, told Martin they won't necessarily get safety fences.

The NCDOT review will consider police reports, past crashes and safety evaluations by state inspectors, he said.

"If data doesn't point that there's a problem there, we probably won't change anything," Gibson said.

In other words, at least two of the three criteria involve evaluating past events, not future possibilities -- the same passive mindset that led the state after Fletcher's death to install a fence only on the side of the bridge he had fallen from, instead of both sides.

Does that tack seem wise?

The thing about faulty designs is that unless you think them through carefully, their flaws aren't apparent until it's too late to avert a catastrophe. That goes for bridges, buildings, airplanes and cars.

Of course, with Raleigh's City Council having wrapped up its $10,000 inauguration party, any of its members could take a lap on the Beltline to check out our bridges, possibly without spilling their curried chicken kabobs or Chardonnay.

Or is that hope for leadership too great a leap of faith?