States With the Worst Bridges

The bridge that collapsed May 23 on Interstate 5 north of Seattle had been struck by a truck hauling an oversize load, authorities said.

"The size of the load he was carrying appeared to create a problem, causing him to strike the bridge," Washington State Patrol Chief John Batiste said, according to Reuters.

Just two days before the collapse, the Seattle section of the American Society of Civil Engineers said the state's transportation infrastructure had "significant needs."

"Bridges were awarded a C-, in part due to the nearly 400 structurally deficient bridges in Washington State," it said, adding that "36 percent of Washington's bridges are past their design life of 50 years."

State Secretary of Transportation Lynn Peterson told reporters the bridge (at left) near Mount Vernon, Wash., was built in 1955. It was not among the more than 150 spans the state Department of Transportation listed as "structurally deficient" in 2011.

That was the year the American Society of Civil Engineers rated the nation's overall infrastructure a "D," with bridges receiving a "C." Of the country's nearly 600,000 bridges, 11.5 percent were rated "structurally deficient," according to Federal Highway Administration figures that year. Despite billions of dollars in annual federal, state and local funds for bridge maintenance, it was estimated that nearly $71 billion was needed to address the backlog of work needed.

Click ahead to see the states with the highest percentage of structurally deficient bridges from that 2011 report card. Washington state was the sixth-best among the 50 states and the District of Columbia that year.

By CNBC.com

Posted: 3 Nov. 2011 and updated 24 May 2013

Percentage of deficient bridges: 15.5
Number of deficient bridges: 2,650
Total number of bridges: 17,063

The Bay Bridge near Bay St. Louis was almost completely destroyed by a tidal surge from Hurricane Katrina in September 2005. It wasn't until May 2007 that two lanes of a newly constructed bridge were opened to traffic.

Source: Transportation for America, Mississippi Department of Transportation

Percentage of deficient bridges: 16.1
Number of deficient bridges: 710
Total number of bridges: 4,410

The Sorlie Memorial Bridge between Grand Forks, N.D., and East Grand Forks, Minn., takes a beating during the 1997 Red River of the North flood.

The Sorlie was built in 1929 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

Percentage of deficient bridges: 16.7
Number of deficient bridges: 957
Total number of bridges: 5,734

The bridges at historic Harpers Ferry, W.Va., where the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers meet, are in good repair compared with bridges elsewhere in the state.

Percentage of deficient bridges: 17
Number of deficient bridges: 4,071
Total number of bridges: 23,945

The new Christopher S. Bond Bridge opened Dec. 18, 2010. The 1,700-foot-long, cable-stayed bridge that spans the Missouri River stands 316 feet tall and replaces the Paseo Bridge built in 1954. Roughly 100,000 vehicles are estimated to traverse the bridge each day.

The bridge was part of a $245 million project to upgrade a roughly 2 mile (3.2 km) section of the I-29/I-35 corridor to six lanes.

Source: Transportation for America

Percentage of deficient bridges: 18.2
Number of deficient bridges: 2,795
Total number of bridges: 15,372

This bridge crossing Prairie Creek in southwestern Platte County, Neb., is along a section of highway listed in the National Register of Historic Places under the name Lincoln Highway-Gardiner Station. The date of the bridge's construction is unknown, but it is thought to predate the 1913 development of the highway.

Percentage of deficient bridges: 20.3
Number of deficient bridges: 1,193
Total number of bridges: 5,890

The Pine Street Bridge in Yankton, S.D., was built in 1912. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It has a daily traffic rate of more than 1,000 vehicles, and its most recent superstructure condition rating was "fair."

Percentage of deficient bridges: 21.6
Number of deficient bridges: 163
Total number of bridges: 754

The Sakonnet River Bridge over the Sakonnet River between Tiverton and Aquidneck Island was built in 1956. In April 2009, the Rhode Island Department of Transporation broke ground on a $163.7 million project to replace the structure.

Percentage of deficient bridges: 21.7
Number of deficient bridges: 5,371
Total number of bridges: 24,722

Automobile traffic isn't the only thing at risk when it comes to structurally deficient bridges. At left, a presidential helicopter flies above a railroad bridge damaged by historic flooding on June 19, 2008, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The surging river caused part of the bridge and about 20 hopper cars loaded with rocks to collapse into the river. The cars had been positioned on the bridge in hopes of weighing it down against the rising water.

Source: Transportation for America

Percentage of deficient bridges: 22.0
Number of deficient bridges: 5,212
Total number of bridges: 23,680

A Federal Emergency Management Agency worker in August 2007 reviews the progress of repairs to the approaches of this bridge that were washed away by floodwaters. FEMA has public assistance programs available to help state and local governments recover costs for bridge and road repairs caused by floods.

Percentage of deficient bridges: 26.5
Number of deficient bridges: 5,906
Total number of bridges: 22,271

The Albert Gallatin Memorial Bridge, a.k.a. the Point Marion Bridge, was built in 1930 to replace a ferry on the Monongahela River. The unusual cantilever truss bridge, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was finally imploded and replaced in 2009.

A previous version of this slideshow included a bridge for Pennsylvania that is not located in that state.