JEFFERSON CITY — State highway officials said it’s safe to cross any of the 14 Missouri bridges that were designed similarly to the one that collapsed in Minnesota.
After the Aug. 1 bridge failure in Minneapolis, the Missouri Department of Transportation inspected all bridges here that had a similar deck truss design.
Inspectors found no major structural problems for half of those bridges. The other half needed repairs or improvements that either have now been completed or are under way.
State bridge maintenance engineer Carl Callahan said the inspections found quite a bit of rust and deterioration. But he said that’s not surprising, considering the bridges are an average of 70 years old.