Construction material and indoor plumbing are common targets for scrap metal thieves who re-sell copper and steel for quick cash. But a group of scrappers in PA dared to think big: they're blamed for stealing an entire 50-foot steel bridge. More at WFMJ news. (via Ethan Zuckerman)

  • http://mattdm.org/ Matthew Miller

    We had a similar thing happen here in Boston, to one of our most prominent bridges. Although they didn’t take the whole bridge; they snuck off with the cast iron copings when they were removed for restoration. http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/23896829/detail.html

  • MJSS

    Where’s Sergeant Colon when you need him?

  • justaddh3o

    That crazy Bubbles – at it again

  • Guest

    One thing they have going for them, they have a bridge they can sell ya’

  • http://twitter.com/james4765 Jim Nelson

    The last refuge of a scoundrel is audacity. They have proven that…

  • Eric Boyd

    This reminds me of Bruce Sterling’s Heavy Weather- it’s an infrastructure hit…. 

  • http://imcravingpresidency.tumblr.com/ SedanChair

    This is actually Phase I of the plan. Phase II is rebuilding the bridge as a scaffold so they can steal a bigger bridge.

  • teapot

    Is it just me or does the bridge seem to go… nowhere at all?

  • Bad Juju

    Nobody was using it.. So I figured, ‘Hey, Free Bridge.’

  • http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul

    Does David Copperfield have an alibi?

  • sudoLoki

    Best part of the story, they didn’t have a buyer lined up, they just approached a random scrap metal buyer.

  • Moriarty

    This looks like the work of Carmen Sandiego.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/BigVic-Proton/1112763277 BigVic Proton

    Now this is a bridge too far!

  • Lobster

    Maybe I can hire them to break down this bridge in Brooklyn I bought.

  • Andy Ribaudo

    Are they sure the bugs from 7th Sigma didn’t eat it?

  • pfepher

    If they pawn it, would it be considered a bridge-loan?

  • http://ad1217.myopenid.com/ Adam Goldsmith

    Yeah… and I have a bridge to sell you (though it is not intact)

  • DamnitDani

    Fuck bridges. Make money.

  • niktemadur

    Bridges already, steel?  Seems like just a few years ago it was copper wiring and tubing.

    Things got so bad in Mexico that kilometers of high voltage cable were being yanked and stolen in rural areas in the dead of the night, yet leaving the wooden poles intact, and to do it that neatly you need special equipment, the kind that only the utility company has, looks like a band of employees “borrowing” mobile units overnight.

    Another face of it is junkies desperate for a fix, while at home one night I heard a loud hiss in the backyard, upon inspecting and to my utter horror and panic, somebody had cut the copper tubing from the stationary gas tank, without bothering to shut off the valve!  The tank had been filled two days before, so that the whole neighborhood stank of gas for hours.  One match, spark or cigarette… another potentially lethal “what if” scenario is that if I had shown my face a minute earlier, I’d have come face to face with the culprit.

    This is the sort of thing that happens when China cuts the ribbon on a new skyscraper or bridge every month or so, the price of construction materials worldwide shoots into the stratosphere, common metals become scarce and profitable in even small amounts.

  • Bucket

    If nobody noticed the bridge being stolen over a period of days, why bother rebuilding it?