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Quake Safety: Delay Equals Risk

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In Southern California, where nearly everyone drives, there’s widespread fear about being on a multilevel freeway interchange when an earthquake occurs.

The intersection of the Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Orange freeways, the legendary Orange Crush, is one of the state’s busiest junctions. It’s also not far from earthquake faults. Thus it was disquieting to learn that three years after the state ordered testing of highway overpasses for earthquake readiness, Caltrans is only now getting to the Orange Crush. The agency should have been quicker.

There was no reason to think anything was wrong with that particular interchange. But what sparked the statewide testing of 299 highway bridges for vulnerability to earthquakes was the discovery three years ago of faulty welding in San Diego freeway overpasses.

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Caltrans officials said they didn’t have enough money to speed up the process. To save money, bridges that were under construction or for which retrofitting already had been contracted were tested first because contractors were on site. At interchanges like the Orange Crush, where construction was finished, reviews would not be done until later.

It turns out that the Orange Crush was toward the end of the line. There are only a dozen bridges left to be tested of the 299 originally scheduled for review. Seven of the dozen are part of the Orange Crush.

Caltrans should have set a deadline to inspect all bridges. The agency did not. If funds were tight, as Caltrans argues, the Legislature should have been asked to help. The interchanges that handle the most traffic should have been inspected early.

The new director of Caltrans says he was surprised that the review “has dragged on” so long and realizes that an important question of public safety is involved.

The public’s attention was especially drawn to problems in the region’s infrastructure last September when a massive water tank burst in Westminster. An engineering report concluded that missing steel bars in the tank contributed to its failure.

Collapsing water tanks and roads that buckle in earthquakes shake residents’ belief that they can go about their daily lives safely. Inspections can justify that faith. When they do not, quick remedies are imperative.

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