Settlement on Minn. Bridge Collapse

[alp227]

Source: Associated Press

Filed at 4:54 p.m. ET

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- After enduring countless surgeries and hours of court hearings, victims of the deadly 2007 Minneapolis Interstate 35W bridge collapse reached the end of their legal fight after an engineering firm agreed to pay $52.4 million to settle scores of lawsuits.

The settlement by San Francisco-based URS Corp. -- agreed to more than a week ago but kept quiet until Monday -- resolves the last major piece of litigation brought by victims. All told, the state and two of its contractors will have paid out $100 million to the families of the 13 people who died and the 145 people who were injured when the Mississippi River bridge broke apart during rush hour.

The settlement averts a trial that had been set for next spring that could have opened URS to punitive damages.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/08/23/us/AP-US-Bridge-Collapse-Legal.html

[Historic NY]

1. The ?? is would the settlements have fixed or repaired the bridge?...

We all live in states where deferred projects put lives in danger...how much should you the taxpapyer be responsible for...really how much? Think about who you elect.

[Indydem]

2. The bridge collapsed because it was built wrong.

Not because it was failed to be inspected.

[dpbrown]

3. That's a bit of an oversimplification

From the http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2008/HAR0803.htm">NTSB summary:

The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was the inadequate load capacity, due to a design error by Sverdrup & Parcel and Associates, Inc., of the gusset plates at the U10 nodes, which failed under a combination of (1) substantial increases in the weight of the bridge, which resulted from previous bridge modifications, and (2) the traffic and concentrated construction loads on the bridge on the day of the collapse. Contributing to the design error was the failure of Sverdrup & Parcel’s quality control procedures to ensure that the appropriate main truss gusset plate calculations were performed for the I-35W bridge and the inadequate design review by Federal and State transportation officials. Contributing to the accident was the generally accepted practice among Federal and State transportation officials of giving inadequate attention to gusset plates during inspections for conditions of distortion, such as bowing, and of excluding gusset plates in load rating analyses.

Emphasis added.

Adequate funding for adequate inspections could have kept the bridge from failing.

[Historic NY]

4. You get it...I live with in 8ths of a mile of 2 that don't ...& few know.

[XemaSab]

5. URS is a MASSIVE company that very few people have heard of

DiFi's husband used to be on the board. :P

Oh geez, and Bill Frist is currently on the board. :puke: