Making Sure North Dakota Bridges Are Safe - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Making Sure North Dakota Bridges Are Safe

With today marking the five year anniversary of the 35-W bridge collapse, some might be wondering how safe bridges are in North Dakota.

There are 4,865 bridges in the state, 1,700 of those on the State Highway System.

Jon Ketterling with the North Dakota Department of Transportation says the bridges in the state are very safe, and every two years each and every bridge in North Dakota is inspected.

"Immediately after that collapse, bridges with the same rating, we inspected them right away and we continue on with our two year inspection cycle," Assistant Bridge Engineer Jon Ketterling said.

Ketterling also says that he believes the typical two year bridge inspection probably wouldn't have caught the problem that caused the 35-W collapse, five years ago.