Infrastructure Failure Quotes

By the time I had finished my coffee and returned to the streets, the rain had temporarily abated, but the streets were full of vast puddles where the drains where unable to cope with the volume of water. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you would think that if one nation ought by now to have mastered the science of drainage, Britain would be it.

Without new money, salaries won't be paid, the health system will stop functioning, the power network and public transport will break down, and they won't be able to import vital goods because nobody can pay.

A bridge shouldn't just fall down in the middle of America. Not a bridge that's a few blocks from my house. Not an eight-lane highway. Not a bridge that I drive over with my family every day, along with tens of thousands of Minnesotans. But that's what happened.

I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.

Thousands of people may have been killed by hurricane Katrina and many more could die in its aftermath because of the President's refusal to heed the calls of governors for help in repairing the infrastructure in their states.

Corruption at every level, city, state, federal, all has helped in making New Orleans a disaster area, the most disappearing land mass on the planet Earth.

The Congress had the opportunity to do a lot of good. It isn't as if they didn't have good people in the party. God knows why they failed. If after 65 years of governance you cannot provide drinking water to everyone then you should be ashamed of yourself.

What happened with Hurricane Katrina was the American electorate was forced to look at what lay behind the veneer of chest-beating. We all saw the consequences of having terrible government leadership.

I come from a generation that suffered school lessons in portacabins and crumbling hospitals. I tell you one thing, for the eighteen years they were in power the Tories did nothing to fix the roof when the sun was shining.

The Hudson River Tunnel is a chokepoint for the financial center - and most productive region - of the United States. It is the most heavily trafficked piece of rail in the entire country and even a partial closure will suffocate our nation's economy.

Once electricity and petrol and facilities and food stop, society stops. It's crazy.

We are producing urban places which are disjointed and disconnected and not worthy of our civilisation

Nationwide, more than 10 percent of public water is lost through leaks. On average, a major water pipe bursts somewhere in the country every 2 minutes.

The federal government was responsible for building the levees, engineering the levees, and consequentially, the federal government is responsible for repairing the damage that has been done, which has not been completed yet.

Flint and its lead contaminated water are now the focus of sustained national attention including political attention.

Watching the scenes out of New Orleans, if you turn down the sound it could be the Sudan or any Third World country. But it's not. it's the United States of America.

Events like Hurricane Katrina and the Minnesota bridge collapse suggest a national infrastructure that has suffered from lack of tending.

Today in Washington, D.C., several government buildings were left without power. Of course, the White House will be without power for two more years.

The waste of capital, in proportion to the total capital, in this country between 1800 and 1850, in the attempts which were made to establish means of communication and transportation, was enormous.

If money is not maintained, it can collapse like a bridge along Interstate 5 and fixing it, even with determined politicians, will take ages, during which time God only knows how much human damage will occur.

It remains to be seen the extent to which the critical needs of seniors in low income high rises, people with home medical needs and those with disabilities have been adequately planned for and met during widespread power outages. I fear the answers.

State and federal studies indicate that thousands of water and sewer systems may be too old to function properly.

I have to tell you, our infrastructure, folks, is a mess. America is like a third-world country.

We're actually just moving one type of deficit to another. But, the problem with this second type of deficit is that you drive on it and then it falls down.

I think our cities' deteriorating infrastructure is a silent crisis.