The Bridge That Stayed

In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters finally receded from the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, residents returned to find almost nothing standing. Houses had been ripped from foundations and carried blocks away. Cars sat upside down in living rooms. But on the corner of Claiborne Avenue, one thing remained: the old concrete bridge spanning the Industrial Canal. Engineers later explained that the bridge had been overbuilt decades earlier — designed to bear far more weight than anyone imagined it would ever need to carry.…