The priority routes have been selected for Western Kentucky which shares the most hazardous New Madrid seismic zone. As the vital links on the priority routes, bridges need to be protected from collapse during earthquakes in order to maintain the access to the route for subsequent emergency traffic. In this paper, a support-loss type of bridge collapse due to earthquake induced abutment sliding is analyzed and corresponding criteria to this type of collapse is established. The analysis methods for existing bridge abutment are advanced. A computer program based on the methods is developed and applied to evaluate the potential earthquake induced damage of 276 bridges on the priority routes
