“Since 2007, every single inspection report that included recommendations said to repair the stiffener plates in the legs that were heavily corroded.”
Pittsburgh inspected the Fern Hollow Bridge 14 times between 2005 and 2021, and it sat on the “poor condition” list for over a decade. When the NTSB fixed the load rating errors, the safe limit came out at 3 tons. Nobody missed the problem. The city wrote it down 14 times and kept the bridge open.