They had this huge advantage. They weren't crushed by steel.

That's something you could use to give the story a more positive spin, right?
This is the sort of horrible story in which the DA's office researches the last invoice paid on bridge maintenance. Follow the money, and it will lead you right down into the river.The Mississippi river is at its lowest in tens of thousands of years, and Oxfordshire is flooding more severely than any previously recorded season. It sounds as if earth movements unforseen during the engineering of the bridge possibly combined with years of neglect to bring about this collapse.

The fact that the bridge was constructed with the steel beneath the road surface kept it hidden from most passersby, driving over it many times daily. "Out of sight, out of mind."