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I was just at my barber and got a question that I'd guess a lot of us both love and dread to hear: "So, you're an engineer, right?" 

He wanted to pick my brain about the tragedy at the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, and while I've been learning a bit about it in the last few days, bridges and port safety protocols are pretty far outside of my professional wheelhouse as a façade engineer. I want to make the most of the increased, but likely fleeting public attention on the profession & the resiliency and design of our infrastructure and I'm curious how you all approach conversations like that before full reports on the causes come out.

How can we best communicate the big picture of how the industry mitigates risk of disasters, and how the public can help?

I was just at my barber and got a question that I'd guess a lot of us both love and dread to hear: "So, you're an engineer, right?" 

He wanted to pick my brain about the tragedy at the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, and while I've been learning a bit about it in the last few days, bridges and port safety protocols are pretty far outside of my professional wheelhouse as a façade engineer. I want to make the most of the increased, but likely fleeting public attention on the profession & the resiliency and design of our infrastructure and I'm curious how you all approach conversations like that before full reports on the causes come out.

How can we best communicate the big picture of how the industry mitigates risk of disasters, and how the public can help?

I was just at my barber and got a question that I'd guess a lot of us both love and dread to hear: "So, you're an engineer, right?" 

He wanted to pick my brain about the tragedy at the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, and while I've been learning a bit about it in the last few days, bridges and port safety protocols are pretty far outside of my professional wheelhouse as a façade engineer. I want to make the most of the increased, but likely fleeting public attention on the profession & the resiliency and design of our infrastructure and I'm curious how you all approach conversations like that before full reports on the causes come out.

How can we best communicate the big picture of how the industry mitigates risk of disasters, and how the public can help?

I was just at my barber and got a question that I'd guess a lot of us both love and dread to hear: "So, you're an engineer, right?" 

He wanted to pick my brain about the tragedy at the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, and while I've been learning a bit about it in the last few days, bridges and port safety protocols are pretty far outside of my professional wheelhouse as a façade engineer. I want to make the most of the increased, but likely fleeting public attention on the profession & the resiliency and design of our infrastructure and I'm curious how you all approach conversations like that before full reports on the causes come out.

How can we best communicate the big picture of how the industry mitigates risk of disasters, and how the public can help?

I was just at my barber and got a question that I'd guess a lot of us both love and dread to hear: "So, you're an engineer, right?" 

He wanted to pick my brain about the tragedy at the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, and while I've been learning a bit about it in the last few days, bridges and port safety protocols are pretty far outside of my professional wheelhouse as a façade engineer. I want to make the most of the increased, but likely fleeting public attention on the profession & the resiliency and design of our infrastructure and I'm curious how you all approach conversations like that before full reports on the causes come out.

How can we best communicate the big picture of how the industry mitigates risk of disasters, and how the public can help?

I was just at my barber and got a question that I'd guess a lot of us both love and dread to hear: "So, you're an engineer, right?" 

He wanted to pick my brain about the tragedy at the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, and while I've been learning a bit about it in the last few days, bridges and port safety protocols are pretty far outside of my professional wheelhouse as a façade engineer. I want to make the most of the increased, but likely fleeting public attention on the profession & the resiliency and design of our infrastructure and I'm curious how you all approach conversations like that before full reports on the causes come out.

How can we best communicate the big picture of how the industry mitigates risk of disasters, and how the public can help?

The collapse of the FSK bridge was a tragedy, and the loss of life was unacceptable, but no one should have been surprised. As Bill Mc pointed out, this was a high-risk event. One just needs to look at a risk assessment matrix. Globally, there is a major bridge collapse due to a barge or ship collision every 1.5 years, and hundreds have been killed in the past decades. See https://apnews.com/article/bridge-collapses-barges-list-1f2d6261d523ddc625aaaf3b32c626bc

Accidents usually happen because of the combined failure of the multiple layers of defense or controls and barriers to prevent failures from occurring. This is sometimes referred to as the Swiss cheese model of accident causation. 

If asked about the bridge failure, I would acknowledge the tragedy and loss of life. I would also unfortunately acknowledge that these things happen and the cause will likely be a breakdown of the presumed controls and barriers intended to prevent such a collapse from occurring. 

Also, to Bil Mc's point, the public must understand that budget limits, commercial pressure to compete, and political forces are also at play here. The public wants good jobs, low prices, and limited regulation, but it comes at a cost.

As a side note, it would be interesting to learn more about whether this risk is treated on the ASCE infrastructure report card. 

I was just at my barber and got a question that I'd guess a lot of us both love and dread to hear: "So, you're an engineer, right?" 

He wanted to pick my brain about the tragedy at the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, and while I've been learning a bit about it in the last few days, bridges and port safety protocols are pretty far outside of my professional wheelhouse as a façade engineer. I want to make the most of the increased, but likely fleeting public attention on the profession & the resiliency and design of our infrastructure and I'm curious how you all approach conversations like that before full reports on the causes come out.

How can we best communicate the big picture of how the industry mitigates risk of disasters, and how the public can help?

I was just at my barber and got a question that I'd guess a lot of us both love and dread to hear: "So, you're an engineer, right?" 

He wanted to pick my brain about the tragedy at the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, and while I've been learning a bit about it in the last few days, bridges and port safety protocols are pretty far outside of my professional wheelhouse as a façade engineer. I want to make the most of the increased, but likely fleeting public attention on the profession & the resiliency and design of our infrastructure and I'm curious how you all approach conversations like that before full reports on the causes come out.

How can we best communicate the big picture of how the industry mitigates risk of disasters, and how the public can help?