Featured Image Credit: @gbarnhisel/Twitter
Topics: Joe Biden
Poppy Bilderbeck
Four cars and a bus were left teetering over the edge of a Pittsburgh bridge after it collapsed.
The bridge, which is near Frick Park, collapsed this morning, January 28, just before 7am and left five vehicles trapped.
Ironically, the incident took place a matter of hours before US President Joe Biden was set to arrive in the city to announce his new infrastructure plan.
Ten people were injured, and three involved in the accident were taken to hospital, New York Post reports.
Pittsburgh Fire Chief Darryl Jones said that the incident involved 'three or four vehicles' and that those who had been hospitalised had not suffered from life-threatening injuries.
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'The others [who were hurt] were some of our first responders who [suffered] slips and falls and things like that, exhaustion. So everybody’s OK,' he said.
Ed Gainey, mayor of Pittsburgh, stated, 'The good thing, at this point, is that there's no fatalities. We were fortunate.'
While it is uncertain why the bridge collapsed – it was last inspected in September 2021 – Rich Fitzgerald, the Allegheny County executive, reflected on how much work is 'gonna need to be done' as a result of the bridge, which he described as a 'major, major artery'.
Pittsburgh Public Safety has since taken to Twitter to warn locals to 'avoid the area of Forbes and Braddock for a confirmed bridge collapse'.
They reported that fire, EMS and police responded to the incident, and said that 'updates will be provided'.
Several families were evacuated so a damaged gas line could be shut off, but have since been allowed to return to their homes.
In November, Biden signed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan into law, which he was set to give a speech about at 2pm, just four miles away from where the bridge collapsed.
Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, took to Twitter to note that Biden was aware of the incident and was planning on proceeding with his journey to Pittsburgh anyway.
She said, 'Our team is in touch with state and local officials on the ground as they continue to gather information about the cause of the collapse,' she wrote, adding that Biden was 'grateful to the first responders who rushed to assist the drivers who were on the bridge at the time' and would 'stay in touch with officials on the ground about additional assistance we can provide'.
Roads, bridges and a series of other projects are anticipated as receiving around $110 billion from the plan.
The collapsed bridge – which was 52 years old and 447ft long – was previously rated as being in 'poor condition' on the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation database, as per The Daily Beast.
Gainey noted how 'critical' the plan is to Southwest Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh.
'We know we have bridges that we need to take care of … At the end of the day, we could have had some serious injuries.'
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