35w Mississippi River Bridge Failed, Thesis

Total Length: 1040 words ( 3 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 5

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The design firm is ultimately responsible, and should bear the brunt of the blame in this situation, and all of their designs should be reconsidered and recalculated at this point. If they had recalculated their results, double tested, or even asked for another opinion, the tragedy might not have occurred, and at the heart of this is the ethical question, was the miscalculation intentional, or was it just a huge mistake? That needs to be investigated now, along with the cause, so that the public is assured that flaws like this one do not continue, and if flawed bridges exist, they must be inspected and ultimately rebuilt to higher standards. Another important aspect of this ethical problem is the acceptance of "Structurally Deficient" bridges by the NTSB, where they know bridges have problems, but their rate those problems and decide whether the bridge can remain open or not. The nation's infrastructure is crumbling, there are probably many more bridges out there, just waiting to collapse, that is wrong, and the American people should not stand for it.

The moral lesson here is that testing needs to be beefed up on engineering and design firms, and that there needs to be some sort of second opinion or oversight on the part of these firms, especially when they are designing structures that people will rely on for decades.
This bridge was flawed from the start, and it was just an accident waiting to happen. The nation needs to make sure that does not happen again. Writer Flynn continues, "The blind eye that taxpayers and our elected officials have been turning to the imperative of maintaining and upgrading the critical foundations that underpin our lives is irrational and reckless" (Flynn). Ethically, the people cannot afford to ignore the implications of ignoring the infrastructure any longer.

Key ideas:

Bridge collapse and background, including 13 victims, 145 injured.

Bridge was deemed "structurally deficient," yet allowed to remain open.

Engineers and inspectors knew there were problems with the bridge.

The bridge was flawed in its' design, implicating the design and engineering firms who created it.

Someone at the NTSB leaked the investigation results.

The bridge was flawed from the start, and no one caught the flaws.

There are many more bridges with the same design across the nation.

The nation's infrastructure is crumbling and enough is not being done to stop more accidents from occurring......

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Latest APA Format (6th edition)

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"35w Mississippi River Bridge Failed " (2008, October 27) Retrieved April 28, 2024, from
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/35w-mississippi-river-bridge-failed-27285

Latest MLA Format (8th edition)

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"35w Mississippi River Bridge Failed " 27 October 2008. Web.28 April. 2024. <
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/35w-mississippi-river-bridge-failed-27285>

Latest Chicago Format (16th edition)

Copy Reference
"35w Mississippi River Bridge Failed ", 27 October 2008, Accessed.28 April. 2024,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/35w-mississippi-river-bridge-failed-27285