A 95-year-old bridge over the Columbia River could collapse at any moment — the cargo ships passing underneath have doubled in size since it was built, and the main pier has never received protection.

Written by Douglas Avila

Published on 29/04/2026 at 19:22

Updated on 29/04/2026 at 19:23

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A bridge could collapse at any moment in the United States, and almost no one is talking about it.

The Lewis and Clark Bridge, inaugurated on March 29, 1930, is celebrating 95 years connecting the cities of Longview, Washington, and Rainier, Oregon, over the Columbia River.

Designed by engineer Joseph Strauss, the same person who designed San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, the structure was considered a masterpiece of American engineering.

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Ships have doubled in size, but the bridge could collapse because nothing has changed

Since the modern navigation channel was completed next to the bridge’s east pier, ships traveling on the Columbia River have doubled in size.

Cargo vessels that were once 150 meters long now reach over 300 meters in length.

Cruise ships exceed 1,000 feet in length, with heights approaching 60 meters.

The problem is that the bridge has not kept pace with this evolution.

The structure does not have air clearance sensors, which would inform river pilots of the exact distance between the top of the ship and the bottom of the bridge.

Without this technology, pilots navigate practically in the dark when it comes to assessing vertical safety margins.

An incident in 2022 illustrates the seriousness of the situation.

The cruise ship Celebrity Eclipse, 317 meters long, passed under the bridge with what pilots estimated to be 1.25 meters of clearance.

Later, considering the natural deflection of the bridge and variations in water level, they discovered that the actual clearance may have been only 33 centimeters.

Thirty-three centimeters separated a cruise ship from a structural catastrophe.

The east pier never received protection against ship collision

And here’s the most alarming detail: the east pier of the Lewis and Clark Bridge, the one closest to the navigation channel, has never received protection against vessel impact.

The bridge once had a wooden fender system, installed decades ago.

But this system, after 40 years of deterioration, was removed around 1992 and replaced only by rubber bumpers.

Rubber bumpers against 100,000-ton ships.

Pilar desprotegido de ponte antiga em rio com navio se aproximando — The east pier of the bridge could collapse in the event of a direct impact from a modern cargo ship, without any protective barrier. Image: AI/Click Petroleo e Gas

If a ship hits any part of this bridge, it will come down entirely, exactly as happened with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.

The comparison is not exaggerated.

In March 2024, the container ship Dali lost engine power and collided with a pier of the Key Bridge in Baltimore, causing the total collapse of the structure and the death of six workers.

The Longview bridge is at even greater risk because it does not have concrete barriers around the piers to prevent direct impacts.

Unlike the Baltimore bridge, which at least had protective dolphins — concrete structures with steel piles filled with tremie concrete — the Lewis and Clark Bridge has nothing.

Engine failures happen twice a month on the Columbia River

Columbia River pilots report an average of two engine failures per month across the entire river system.

These are ships that simply lose propulsion power while navigating near bridges, docks, and other critical structures.

On the first weekend of February 2026, a ship heading to the Pacific from the Port of Longview lost power right next to the Lewis and Clark Bridge.

If that ship had drifted a few meters to the side, the unprotected pier would have been hit squarely.

There is no margin for error when it comes to vessels hundreds of meters long losing control near a 95-year-old structure without any protection.

The scenario is identical to what preceded the Baltimore disaster.

The same combination of large ship, mechanical failure, and vulnerable pier.

NTSB report classifies bridge as unknown risk

A 2025 report by the National Transportation Safety Board, the American transportation safety agency, identified the Lewis and Clark Bridge as a special case.

Along with the Astoria-Megler Bridge, it is the only bridge classified as critical

A 95-year-old bridge over the Columbia River could collapse at any moment — the cargo ships passing underneath have doubled in size since it was built, and the main pier has never received protection.

Ships have doubled in size, but the bridge could collapse because nothing has changed

The east pier never received protection against ship collision

Engine failures happen twice a month on the Columbia River

NTSB report classifies bridge as unknown risk

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A 95-year-old bridge over the Columbia River could collapse at any moment — the cargo ships passing underneath have doubled in size since it was built, and the main pier has never received protection.

Ships have doubled in size, but the bridge could collapse because nothing has changed

The east pier never received protection against ship collision

Engine failures happen twice a month on the Columbia River

NTSB report classifies bridge as unknown risk

Gaddafi built the world’s largest artificial river under the Sahara — it’s 4,000 km of giant pipes that pump 40,000-year-old fossil water to entire cities in Libya.

The Soviet Union spent 22 years drilling into the Earth’s crust and reached a depth of 12,262 meters — they found water where it was thought impossible, hydrogen bubbling from the rock, granite that is 2.7 billion years old, and temperatures of 180 degrees that melted the drill bits.

Discovery in Africa scares even scientists: a study published on April 23 reveals that the crust in Turkana has become so thin that it could pave the way for the continent’s division and the emergence of an ocean in the future, in a gigantic geological transformation.

A German architect built a cylindrical house in 1994 that rotates to follow the sun throughout the day, generates 5 times more energy than it consumes, and was the world’s first energy-positive house.

During works to build an artificial island in Indonesia, workers dredged 5 million cubic meters of sand from the seabed and found over 6,000 fossils from a lost continent that submerged 10,000 years ago.

Brazil spent R$ 1.9 billion on a giant bridge to Paraguay, and it is already finished, but no one can use it properly because the access points are not ready, and traffic remains blocked months later.

An unmanned Russian ship has been drifting in the Mediterranean for 57 days with 60,000 tons of gas — the second towing attempt has just failed.

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