Chicago Skyway Bridge among 68 bridges that need to be assessed for collapse risk: NTSB

(NewsNation) — The National Transportation Board said Thursday that 68 bridges in 19 states should conduct a “vulnerability assessment” to determine the risk of a collapse.

This assessment, the NTSB said, is part of an ongoing investigation of the collapse of The Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland last year. On March 26.2024, the containership Dali struck the bridge after losing power.

At the time it went down, the Key Bridge was almost 30 times above the acceptable risk threshold for critical or essential bridges, the NTSB found, per guidance from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

In the last year, the NTSB identified 68 bridges designed before this guidance even came out, so they don’t have a current vulnerability assessment.

“The recommendations are issued to bridge owners to calculate the annual frequency of collapse for their bridges using AASHTO’s Method II calculation,” a press release from the NTSB says.

The agency says its report “does not suggest that the 68 bridges are certain to collapse” — rather, the NTSB is recommending they be evaluated based on the AASHTO acceptable level of risk.

Bridges recommended for assessment include the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California; New York’s Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridge; Lewis and Clark Bridge in Washington; the Chicago Skyway Bridge in Illinois and Huey P. Long Bridge near New Orleans, Louisiana.

You can read the full list of bridges in the NTSB’s report here. The 68 are listed as either “critical/essential” or typical. Those that are considered critical “serve as important links” in the Strategic Highway Network.

States on the list with bridges to be looked at are: California; Delaware; Florida; Georgia; Illinois; Louisiana; Maryland; Massachusetts; Michigan; New Hampshire; New Jersey; New York; Ohio; Oregon; Pennsylvania; Rhode Island; Texas; Washington and Wisconsin.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.