Three southern states, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, found no problems with their bridge structures in the year since the Minnesota disaster.

"Florida did not have a big problem with deficient bridges," says Robert G. Burleson, president of the Florida Transportation Builders Association, He adds that the state has kept up its bridge maintenance. "Before spending on anything else, we take care of what wešve got. But we need more money to keep up with growth and congestion," Burleson says.

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Burleson also says that Florida would be penalized by the National Highway Bridge Reconstruction and Inspection Act, a bill pending in the U.S. House, because "deficient bridges are not an issue down here."

Crystal Paulk-Buchanan, spokesperson for the Georgia Dept. of Transportation (GaDOT), says that the state has only two steel-deck span bridges. Both had been inspected within three months before the Minnesota incident. When those Georgia bridges were reinspected, no changes or problems were found. No bridges have been closed, Paulk-Buchanan says, and no changes have been made to the state's inspection processes. GaDOT inspects all highway, county and city bridges at least every two years. Paulk-Buchanan says she is not aware of any increased funding.

Steven L. Parks, executive director of the Georgia Highway Contractors Association, says funding in the state is down from $2.7 billion let in 2007 to less than $1 billion in 2008. "We're not letting the same number of bridge upgrades as in 2007, but we had a lot let [last year], so the need might not be there," Parks says.

"South Carolina inspectors found no serious problem" after the Minnesota incident, says Lee Floyd, state bridge maintenance engineer for the state's DOT. The agency completed reinspection of fracture-critical bridges using a cross-district approach, with inspectors checking out bridges in areas in which they do not normally work. The teams found a problem on an approach span of one farm-to-market bridge and closed it. All other bridges passed inspections. The state does not have any steel-deck span bridges.

Floyd says that if the pending funding bill passes and does not allow switching the funds to other projects, the SCDOT may reallocate other funding now planned for bridges to other types of projects, so that the new monies can be spent on bridge work. He would not speculate about how the state would use the money until the bill passes and the agency knows how much it has coming. He voiced no concern, however, about being able to spend it, saying, "We have bridges in design we can use it on."

SCDOT has not made any changes to its bridge inspection program, but the agency is seriously considering switching to annual inspections on some fracture-critical bridges, even though it has not received additional funding for bridge inspections.

The agency also is working with Clemson University and private industry to conduct structural health monitoring, placing on a bridge devices that will stay in place for months or a couple of years. Inspectors will be able to check on the monitoring equipment via the World Wide Web. Structural health monitoring would complement, not replace, load tests, which can be completed within a day.