… is responsible for inspecting roughly 1,000 bridges throughout the state. Considering the size and relative remoteness of Alaska—it is larger than Texas, California and Montana combined—manually inspecting each of these bridges is both time consuming and costly. Mostafa Tazarv, an associate professor in South Dakota State University’s Jerome J. Lohr College … and the National Center for Transportation Infrastructure Durability and Life Extension, which is a U.S. Department of Transportation University Transportation Center. Post-event damage assessment tools Over the past couple years, Tazarv and Won have been working to develop BrDATs, a set of bridge damage assessment tools in the form of an internet application. … they can also incredibly time consuming. For example, if Seattle, Washington, were to have an earthquake, all of its bridges in the area would need to be inspected before they are reopened. Prior to Tazarv’s and Won’s project, the only real way to inspect them was to send a certified inspector to each bridge. “You need hundreds of engineers in the area following …