If youre like me, every time you cross a bridge since the Minneapolis disaster, you breathe a sigh of relief when you make it to the other side.
Actually, Im paranoid about bridges. Its been many, many years since I walked across one, clinging to the guardrail, and every time I drive across one I pray I get to the other side before an earthquake hits.
When I wrote that once, I wound up talking to Al Walley, the then bridge expert for the Department of Transportation, who found it amusing. Youd worry more about 15 seconds on a bridge than being in a building? he asked.
There were at that time, 1990, about 3,150 bridges of all kinds on the state. That includes highway overpasses, pedestrian and railroad crossings. Even the Seattle Convention Center is considered a bridge since it crosses the freeway. There are 20 crossings of the Columbia River alone.
Most of the bridges were designed to consider the seismic load, Walley told me, that is, how to accommodate the stresses generated by an earthquake. Weve been factoring in seismic loads since 1950, he said, and its been in the national code since 1960.
What that means is that the structure is designed to resist the force generated by the motion of a quake, or be flexible enough to give a little. The Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge, then a loner over the Narrows, would be a good place to be in a quake, he said. You might not like the ride, but it would be pretty safe. The same goes for the four floating bridges, the one over Hood Canal and three on Lake Washington. Half of Hood Canal and one of the Lake bridges sank, but in storms, not quakes, and were rebuilt.
I guess then, I said, the worst place to be in an earthquake would be on or under a highway overpass. At least thats what it looks like in pictures from quakes like those in California. Weve had two severe quakes, Walley said, and I never remember seeing an overpass crumpled on the highway.
The state had recorded history back at least 60 years at that time, he said, and in it 48 bridges failed, which is what they say when a bridge is wiped out, one way or another.
Farthest back on his list was one in 1931, lost in a fire when its wooden deck burned up.
Actually, 24 of the 48 failed bridges, Walley said, were lost to floods. Two fell March 27, 1964, on the Copalis River as a result of the tsunami from the Alaska earthquake.
So wheres the oldest bridge in the state? In Spokane, he said. The concrete arch bridge over the Spokane River at East Trent was built in 1910. So is the state looking at replacing it? Nope, Walley said. Its satisfactory for the traffic even if its 80 years old. These are tough old bridges.
That being 17 years ago, I decided to check and see if its still standing today. Walleys retired from DOT so I called the Spokane Regional office and two people I talked to there didnt know. Dont you live in Spokane? I asked. Yes, but they didnt know. Id have to ask the bridges and structures folks in Olympia. When I called that number I got a fellow who answered bridges and structures, but who also didnt know. He was not too familiar with bridges, he said. He was an office worker, not a bridge person, he said.
He put me in touch with Dave Lemcke, who did know. The Spokane River bridge is tough all right; its still standing at 97. There may be older bridges in the state but not that DOT has any records on as to when they were built. The Spokane bridge is on the list of 50 bridges slated for replacement, Lemcke said, although he didnt know its ranking.
Anyway, when the Big One hits, head for the nearest bridge.

Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville WA 98340.