That was a headline in one of the downtown newspapers the other day. How correct that is.

It took 9/11 for us to begin to look seriously at terror in the previously impervious United States. Now we have chaos at the airports when doctors call 911 because they missed their flight. Before that New York catastrophe, we could have been sitting next to a serial killer dressed up only to look like a little old lady from Duluth.

Half a continent away a week ago, an aging interstate highway bridge across the Mississippi River dropped suddenly into the water below killing many and stunning the people of Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Suddenly the local media is thick with potential disaster stories. Most of us who live in West Seattle already realize the potential disaster of the Alaskan Way Viaduct. At the same time, you would have to have been in a coma not to realize there were serious concerns about the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge - better known as the 520 bridge.

According to the Seattle Department of Transportation, there are more than 3 million square feet of city-maintained bridge decks on 182 bridges inspected by the city. Many of these bridges have problems; from minor rusting and decks with potholes, to serious structural problems that could cause a catastrophe similar to Minneapolis.

There are problems with the West Seattle Bridge span and the Spokane Street Viaduct. The Viaduct is the lowest (most dangerous) but all of these structures are of concern, especially if an earthquake happens or, and this is a big "or," if we continue our ways and do nothing.

I can hear the naysayers now, "if government just cut out the waste and concentrated money on the important things, there would be plenty to fix all of our problems." These are the same people who go home each night to watch "Ozzie and Harriett" and think about voting for Taft for president.

We are still spoiled by the "good old days" when gas was 25 cents a gallon and the federal government answered to the likes of Maggie and Scoop (former U.S. Sens. Warren G. Magnuson and Henry M. Jackson) who forced millions into our state for public works projects. It wasn't that hard to do then, either, because we got "free" money from "the feds" to build freeways and bridges and lots of other things.

Now our federal government spends our tax money on the disastrous Iraq war and to prop up huge agribusinesses.

Our leaders need to come up with a sensible plan to fix our infrastructure, and make it a plan that can be financed by (gasp) raising taxes on the wealthy and paying to fix things as we go, rather than take out some big, expensive loan (bonds) that force us to pay, and pay, and pay.

The key to this editorial is "leadership." That is something we used to have around here, but we suppose those folks left town back when the last person to leave was supposed to turn out the lights.

-Jack Mayne