Could the Minneapolis Bridge Collapse Have Been Averted?

The death toll now stands at five, with eight people missing. CNN reports the following:

The bridge collapse during Minneapolis' rush hour Wednesday has raised questions about structural problems with bridges in general and the I-35W bridge in particular.

Dan Dorgan, Minnesota's top bridge engineer and the man responsible for bridge inspections, said an engineering firm last year examined the bridge and gave the state two options: add steel reinforcements to the bridge or further inspect welds on the structure, CNN affiliate Internet Broadcasting reported.

Both scenarios envisioned the bridge would be replaced or substantially rebuilt around 2020, according to Internet Broadcasting.

"We chose the inspection route," Dorgan said, because the firm believed drilling holes to add the steel would have weakened the structure.

"We thought we had done everything we could," Dorgan told Internet Broadcasting. "Obviously, something went terribly wrong."

The investigations will focus on what happened but it will take time to ascertain the cause, and it will also take time for that knowledge to be translated into repairs or replacement of similar structures around the US.

UPDATE:
Ed Morrissey, who lives in Minnesota, notes the following:

It doesn't appear that money or neglect played a part in this collapse. It looks instead that MnDOT either didn't evaluate the bridge properly, or that the fatigue it noted didn't have anything to do with the collapse.

Other reports from around the country have called into question the kind of inspections that are done and whether they could accurately spot flaws. That's quite troublesome, especially since many inspections do not utilize remote sensing technologies but rather rely on a visual inspection, which may not uncover serious flaws lurking beneath the surface.