A minor incident where a bridge over a snowy ravine in Pittsburgh collapsed came into national attention as US president Joe Biden visited the city to speak on his $1 trillion infrastructure plan. “There are literally more bridges in Pittsburgh than in any other city in the world. And we’re going to fix them all. Not a joke — this is going to be a gigantic change. There’s 43,000 nationwide and we’re sending the money,” Biden reacted by saying when he reached the spot according to a report by the AFP.
Bridges collapsing due to the extreme cold in the US is not uncommon but the bridge collapse in Pennsylvania – where no one was injured – was symbolic as Biden’s approval ratings continue to drop amid rising inflation, Covid deaths and imminent threat from Russia.
Authorities in Pittsburgh said that three people were hospitalised with injuries that were not life threatening. Another official speaking to news agency BBC said that it was fortunate that not a lot of people were driving on the bridge when it collapsed and said that Biden’s bill emphasises on the need of an infrastructure rebuild.
“We know we have bridges we need to take care of. For him coming today to talk about why this funding is so important…this is critical we get this funding,” Pittsburgh mayor Ed Gainey was quoted as saying by news agency Fox News.
Biden, later, at an event in the Carnegie Mellon University’s Manufacturing Futures Institute, which is built upon a steel mill called Mill 19, said that Pittsburgh continues to reel from the 100,000 steel jobs lost between 1970 and 1990. Mill 19, which dates back to 1943, was once famous for churning out more than a million tons of metal a year.
In a bid to push the ‘Build A Better America’ campaign he said that manufacturing should be concentrated within the United States and should not be outsourced. “To build a truly strong economy we need a future that’s made in America. That means using products, parts, materials built right here in the United States of America. It means bringing manufacturing back, jobs back, building a supply chain here at home — not outsourcing abroad,” Biden was quoted as saying by news agency AFP.
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