Montana's regular inspection and maintenance of its 5,000 bridges should prevent tragedies like the Minneapolis bridge collapse from occurring here, Transportation Director Jim Lynch said Thursday.

Each year, the state Department of Transportation inspects half of the roughly 5,000 state and county bridges. Missoula County examines its own bridges, and the state agency double-checks the work.

Inspectors will examine bridges more often, if necessary, Lynch said.

"If we find something that we need to get fixed immediately, we do it," Lynch said. "If we ever see a bridge that is not safe for public travel, we're going to close it."

If people see any potential hazards with bridges, Lynch urged them to notify the department immediately.

On Thursday, Gov. Brian Schweitzer asked Lynch to prepare a report on Montana bridge safety "to make sure we are doing all we can to ensure folks in Montana are safe in Montana." The report will be submitted Monday.

The state owns 2,662 bridges, while the remaining 2,340 are county-owned.

Montana spends $24 million a year inspecting and repairing bridges, said Kent Barnes, the department's bridge engineer. Asked whether that was enough, Barnes said it wasn't, but the department prioritizes and does what it can "to keep our infrastructure in good condition."

"In the last couple of years, we've really stepped it up," said the department's chief engineer, Loran Frazier

The 2005 Legislature approved the department's request to double the number of bridge inspectors to 10 so some are assigned to each of the agency's five district offices.

The department was able to buy two more "snooper trucks," the vehicles with the boom arm that allows them, while parked on the bridge, to look underneath the structure. Now each district office has one.

Transportation officials played down the possibility of a similar bridge collapse occurring here.

"I don't see anything on our system that the public should be immediately worried about," Barnes said.

Some 140,000 vehicles a day drove over the Minneapolis bridge, while no bridge here has that volume of traffic, he said.

However, Montana has 10 deck-truss bridges with similar structures to the Minneapolis bridge, but officials said they are not at risk.

Frasier said these five deck truss are state bridges:

n Two miles north of Troy on U.S. Highway 2.

n Near Gardiner on U.S. 89.

n Five miles west of Potomac on U.S. 2.

n The Two Medicine Bridge on Highway 200 near East Glacier.

n Across the Thompson River on Highway 200 near Thompson Falls.

Here are the five county-owned deck-truss bridges:

n Eight miles northwest of Baker.

n Four miles east of Tarkio, west of Alberton, on the frontage road.

n Three miles west of Alberton

n At St. Regis.

n One mile west of Huron by Frenchtown.

The federal and state government classify bridges into several categories: "structurally deficient" and "functionally obsolete."

A bridge is rated as structurally deficient, if, on a scale of one to nine, any of these scores occurs: deck condition (the riding surface), superstructure (the beams and supports directly below the deck) or the substructure (the support columns below the superstructure) is rated four or less, the structural evaluation of capacity is two or less or the waterway adequacy (the ability to pass water flow) is two or less.

A bridge is classified as functionally obsolete, when on a scale of one to nine, any of these scores occurs; structural evaluation, deck geometry (deck width versus traffic count), under clearance or approach roadway alignment is three or less and waterway adequacy is three.

"The whole term, 'structurally deficient,' sounds absolutely terrible," said Charity Watt Levis, spokeswoman for the state agency. It's a rating system. It's not something as dire as it comes across."

Information from bridge databases show that slightly more than 20 percent of state and county bridges were rated deficient -- 542 bridges deemed functionally obsolete, while 499 were rated structurally deficient as of December 2006. Many are county bridges.

Montana does have plenty of old bridges, with 350 of the 5,002 bridges built before 1931 and 1,461 erected before 1956.

Some of these are part of "an aging infrastructure that we have across the United States," Frazier said. "Some of them are of concern, and we have to deal with. Some of them are getting old and getting to the end of their useful life."

This is a challenge facing transportation engineers across the country, he said. That's why Montana sought the additional inspectors and equipment.

"We're fortunate," Frazier said. "We've had bridge failures, but none of the tragedies like they've had in Minnesota."