This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Interstate 10 closed ‘completely & indefinitely’ due to California bridge collapse http://t.co/8kf4Qrqa9t pic.twitter.com/AipJ5soE77 — RT America (@RT_America) July 20, 2015

What does it look like when America fails to maintain its basic infrastructure? It looks like this scene in Desert City, California, on Sunday, when the Tex Wash bridge collapsed after a weekend of heavy rains, injuring one driver and snarling traffic for miles.



"Interstate 10 is closed completely and indefinitely."

The bridge is a vital part of Interstate 10, which connects Southern California to Phoenix. "Interstate 10 is closed completely and indefinitely," said Terri Kasinga, spokeswoman for the California Department of Transportation, speaking to Associated Press.



With I-10 shut down, drivers going between California and Phoenix will be forced to either divert to Interstate 8 to the south, or Interstate 40 to the north. Both detours add hundreds of miles to the trip.

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

I-10 closed in middle of California desert due to flooding, bridge collapse: http://t.co/51IAQz0Dn2 #abc15 pic.twitter.com/r18hzS1WrF — ABC15 Arizona (@abc15) July 20, 2015

America's is no stranger to bridge collapse. The Hopple Street Overpass over I-75 Southbound in Cincinatti, Ohio, collapsed in January of this year when a demolition project went bad, killing one construction foreman.



In Mount Vernon, Washington, three were injured in 2013 after the I-5 Skagit River Bridge, which had been rated "functionally obsolete," collapsed after an overloaded semi truck clipped a girder on the trestle bridge. (To be fair, terms like "functionally obsolete" means something different to a bridge engineer than a layman—you can brush up on your bridge terminology here.)

And in August of 2007, the Minneapolis I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River had a total failure, killing 13 and injuring 145. A review by the National Transit and Safety Board found that severe design flaws led to the collapse. Several safety reviews in the years before had noted flaws in the bridge, and it was rated "structurally deficient,"—an ignominious term shared by 75,000 other bridges in American in 2007.

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, one in nine of the bridges in America was rated "structurally deficient" in 2013. In the ASCE's 2013 annual report card, bridges scored a C+. Which, relative to other parts of the American infrastructure, is relatively good. Dams and roads were given a D, while levees were given a D-. Said the ASCE at the time, "our infrastructure systems are failing to keep pace with the current and expanding needs, and investment in infrastructure is faltering." There are signs of hope; the ASCE's report card gave a slightly improved grade to America's overall infrastructure compared to its previous report card in 2009.

But disasters like the Tex Wash bridge collapse, which will impact millions of people for months, if not years, prove a hard-to-argue fact: the U.S. seems incapable of actually maintaining its built infrastructure, and there is virtually no political willpower to change that.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io