Portland’s not a good city for people with a fear of bridges; a total of eight crisscross the downtown area. With the devastating earthquake and aftershocks in Japan, officials have started taking another look at the state of our fine city’s bridges, and the results are not good.
If Portland were hit by an earthquake the magnitude of the one that hit Japan, only one bridge would remain standing – Marquam Bridge. To make matters a little more terrifying, there aren’t currently any funding sources in place to fortify the existing bridges to ensure against their collapse.
Though it is reassuring that an earthquake of that size isn’t too likely, the fact that we have a few volcanoes around doesn’t make us feel any better. Maybe it’s time for us all to buy a few of those amphibious Volkswagen Things that were popular in the ’70s…
Source: Portland bridges vulnerable to major earthquake