From Contra Costa Times:
California in recent decades has spent billions retrofitting its bridges for earthquakes, but in the wake of Thursday’s bridge collapse in Washington state, critics say the Golden State is still lagging behind most other states in the quality of its bridges.
Thousands of bridges in California are classified as “structurally deficient” by federal transportation authorities, meaning they have some kind of defect that needs regular inspection. Thousands more were built so long ago that they — like the bridge that collapsed Thursday after its trusses were hit by a big rig — are considered “functionally obsolete,” meaning they were designed years earlier when truck loads and traffic were much lighter.
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