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After 13 people died in August 2007 when a freeway bridge fell into the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, governors across the nation rushed to calm fears. Using almost identical language, states assured the public that bridges are safe, because federal regulations require inspection of "every bridge at least once every two years." In fact, at lest 17,000 bridges in the U.S. went more than two years between safety inspections, according to federal records obtained by msnbc.com. Obtaining new records from the National Bridge Inventory under the Freedom of Information Act, bill Dedman of msnbc.com gave the public a look at inspection records through 2006. The series of articles documented several lapses in state and federal oversight bridge inspections. The interactive staff at msnbc.com created the Bridge Tracker, an interactive map of bridges, allowing readers to look at the inspection information for bridges they cross. The map shows the condition and inspection dates for more than 100,000 bridges with traffic of at least 10,000 vehicles a day.