So... to me this is like when people from the northern US blame Virginia, Maryland, and DC for shutting down when they get more than six inches of snow.
What do I mean? Yes, the Mid-Atlantic states totally COULD put more money into building and maintaining supplies, employees, and vehicle fleet required to keep the DC Metro region open when we get greater amounts of snowfall. The region ain't poor after all, and when we have a snowy winter and the government and schools end up spending weeks shut down over a few months it seems really silly that they don't.
But then, the average amount of annual snowfall is around 15 inches spread over six months (November, December, January, February, March, and April)... that averages to less than 3 inches per month, and while yes, you'd be right that most snowfall is concentrated in Winter proper (late December to early March) and grant only 3 inches to the months outside of that three month period... that leads to an average of... 4 inches per month. Well below six inches of snowfall. Thus why maintain the resources needed for more than that?*
In other words, what I'm saying is yes, in hindsight it's likely they COULD have done more to secure the bridge; however, the how likely they would NEEDING such expensive engineering reinforcement was likely deemed too low of a chance based on the past history of the bridge and Maritime use of Baltimore (which, bear in mind, has been a port since the COLONIAL PERIOD). Thus based on the history and experience of things they had no expectation that such a black swan event was likely to happen and so the expense of such upgrades was likely discarded. Yes, technically, they took a gamble, but they were gambling against a boat rolling a series of Nat 1s that most folks would dismiss as probable.
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* Another factor to consider for this is snowfall in the region, based on the over 30 years I've lived there is that snowfall tends to either be light and under six inches, or be end of days blizzards that dump feet of snow and ice in such a rapid period that even more northern cities would shut down due to them... with little in between.