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SEE SIDEBARS: HOW THEY DID IT
Only 19 months ago, the corroded 20-foot steel beam on the Manhattan Bridge that caused yesterday's subway hiatus was rated a healthy Class 5 on the state's classification system.
Yet on Wednesday inspectors found extensive decay that sent the beam's rating plummeting to a Class 0 - causing officials to shut down subway service on the bridge.
Trains resumed running yesterday after the beam was patched, but state and city officials were left scrambling to investigate two possible explanations for the close call, each with grim implications for an 83-year-old East River span awaiting a decade of reconstruction.
Either the three government agencies that have inspected the bridge since late 1990 failed to spot the decay, or the beam underwent what scientists have identified as "accelerated corrosion," which sends exposed bridge steel into a cancerous frenzy of internal disintegration fed by salt, grime and bird excrement, city and state officials said yesterday.
Joseph DePlasco, spokesman for city Transportation Commissioner Lucius Riccio, acknowledged yesterday...