When the westbound Washington Bridge over the Seekonk River was abruptly shut down in December 2023, Rhode Island was told it was an unexpected emergency. More than a year later, the bridge has been demolished, a costly replacement is underway, and the story has only grown murkier. In this episode of In the Dugout, we take a deep dive into how one of the state’s most critical pieces of infrastructure reached catastrophic failure — and whether it ever truly had to.

At the center of this conversation is Casey Jones, a Kansas-based professional engineer whose meticulous YouTube series, The Washington Bridge (I-195) Saga, has become required viewing for anyone trying to understand what went wrong. Through dozens of videos, Jones has analyzed inspection records, forensic findings, lawsuits, and public testimony, raising serious questions about missed warning signs, incomplete inspections, and a lack of specialized scrutiny for the bridge’s post-tensioned design — vulnerabilities that were known as far back as the early 1990s.

Jones’ analysis goes beyond corrosion and concrete. He points to systemic oversight failures and what he sees as a troubling lack of transparency from RIDOT leadership, including delayed release of forensic audits, evasive answers in oversight hearings, and a tendency to shift blame outward rather than confront internal shortcomings. He also raises concerns about political considerations shaping engineering decisions, undermining public trust and muddying what should be a fact-driven reckoning.

The Washington Bridge, Jones argues, should be a national wake-up call — not just about aging infrastructure, but about accountability, inspection culture, and how governments communicate risk. In In the Dugout, we examine whether Rhode Island is truly learning from this collapse, or whether the official narrative is being carefully managed to avoid uncomfortable truths. Because if the lessons aren’t honestly confronted here, the next failure may already be waiting somewhere else.