comfortable that there was no appreciable deterioration of the piles contributing to the collapse. all that remained were three concrete piers. when investigators looked more closely, they discovered that the steel plates used to connect the bridge to the concrete were displaced 48 inches out of alignment. corley also examined the bolts that attached the metal plates to the concrete. those attachments were poorly maintained, and in several cases, the holes that were supposed to have bolts through them didn t have anything recognizable in them. when we took the material out that was in those holes, we found that it was rust. when the sunset limited was pulled out of the water in bayou canot with sections of the bridge, it was evident that something terrible had happened.