They talked about the Silver Bridge as an historical reference a lot today on the various national news channels.
CNN talked about it several times. Infact CNN’s Chad Myers (who used to work at Channel 6 in Columbus) went into detail comparing the two. FOX actully showed pictures from the Silver Bridge collapse.
The Silver Bridge collapse changed the way bridges were created in the United States. After Dec 15 1967, new bridges were no longer non redundant. Which means if a main connection broke, the rest of the bridge would no longer fail with newer designs.
Problem is. The Minnesota bridge was created just months before the Silver Bridge collapsed. Thus like with the Silver Bridge, if the main link broke, there was a DOMINO effect.
The two bridge collapses will always be linked based on this alone.
Exactly... regardless of names or route numbers, the shame is that there are many existing bridges that aren't built how they would be if they were created today.