Collapsing stretches of motorway, the New York Underground on the verge of flooding and a series of train derailments: this is the disturbing reality of the infrastructure of the world’s leading power. They are falling into disrepair. Every month, a spectacular accident makes the headlines. Lack of maintenance, privatisation: the political choices of the last few decades are taking their toll. Today, these rampant degradations threaten the omnipotence of the United States, but also the health and safety of Americans. President Joe Biden has released 1,200 billion dollars to launch a major renovation plan. But will it be enough?
In Jackson, Mississippi, thousands of residents could no longer drink tap water, or even cook, because the treatment plants and pipes in their towns had failed. Faced with the emergency, the state was forced to requisition the army to distribute bottles of drinking water for weeks on end. In Pennsylvania, we investigated the disastrous state of the bridges.
In New York, underground traffic is regularly interrupted by torrents of water! In the event of a major storm or when a pipe bursts, the tracks become totally impassable.
Elsewhere, it’s the state of the electricity network that is putting citizens at risk. In Hawaii, a major fault caused a fire that razed an entire town to the ground and killed 100 people. The cause of the chaos was decades of widespread neglect.