After years of quiet winters, Riverbend's spring arrived with nonstop rain. The wooden planks of the town's only bridge had soaked up water for years, and metal bolts showed rust. When the river swelled and pushed hard against the posts, the bridge twisted and cracked. One afternoon, it collapsed into the rushing water. For a week, people had to drive twenty miles around to reach the other side. Town leaders asked engineers to study what went wrong. They learned that water and time had weakened the wood, and that the river flowed fastest at the bridge's bend. The town replaced the bridge with a steel design set on deeper concrete supports. Workers also planted trees upstream to slow runoff after storms. By the next spring, cars and school buses crossed smoothly, even when the river ran high.