You may recall a couple of weeks ago on May 11 we reported that the Hernando de Soto bridge connecting Arkansas to Tennessee across the Mississippi river on I-40 was closed in an emergency fashion when a structural crack had been discovered in one of the bridge’s beams. You may also recall that the public information officer for ADOT claimed the stoppage could last “as little as an hour or as long as a week.” We are now well over a week into the bridge’s closure, and Memphis traffic remains a total clusterfuck. The Associated Press has recently uncovered evidence that the cracked beam was visibly cracked as far back as 2016.
How often are bridges inspected? I wouldnt be surprised if it was not caught that entire time due to length of time between inspections
Read the article. Yearly. Can't find footage from before 2019, the 2019-2020 inspector just got fired over it tho, article says it smells like a scapegoat thing.