Michigan’s Mackinac Bridge is among the 68 bridges across 19 states that the National Transportation Safety Board recommended be assessed to determine “the risk of collapse from a vessel collision.”
This comes as part of the ongoing investigation into last year’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore. The bridge collapsed after the Dali, a containership, struck one of its supports. Six construction workers were killed.
Over the last year, the NTSB identified 68 bridges that don’t have a current vulnerability assessment.
Each bridge on the list is classified as “critical/essential” or “typical.”
Bridges that “serve as important links” are categorized as “critical/essential.” The Key Bridge had this classification, and so does the Mackinac Bridge.
This list doesn’t mean that these bridges are “certain to collapse,” but the board is recommending that the 30 bridge owners evaluate if the bridges are above the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials' acceptable level of risk.
“The NTSB found that had the Maryland Transportation Authority, or MDTA, conducted a vulnerability assessment on the Key Bridge based on recent vessel traffic, MDTA would have been aware that the Key Bridge was above the acceptable risk and would have had information to proactively reduce the bridge’s risk of a collapse and loss of lives associated with a vessel collision with the bridge,” the according to a release from the NTSB.
The Mackinac Bridge opened in 1957 and is owned by the Mackinac Bridge Authority.
The bridge connects the state’s upper and lower peninsulas and spans the Straits of Mackinac, which connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.
To view the NTSB’s full report and see the other bridges on the list, visit here.
