ALLENSTOWN, N.H. -- New Hampshire officials are opening a new bridge early after inspectors discovered major problems at a bridge in Allenstown on Friday.

Inspectors were examining a handful of bridges in the state in the wake of the Minneapolis bridge collapse. One of those bridges was the Allenstown Bridge, where an inspector found a spot of wear and tear, causing it to settle.

"If it were to settle, like, 3 to 4, maybe 5 inches, that would be like running into a 4-by-4 that wouldn't give," bridge inspector David Coffey said.

Workers installed steel beams under the bridge as a precaution. A new bridge to replace the old one has been under construction and was scheduled to open late next week. Now, it will open as early as Monday.

"Just to be on the safe side," Coffey said. "Probably nothing would happen, but you don't want to take any chances."

The inspection was part of an order from Washington asking all states to inspect bridges similar to the one that collapsed in Minneapolis this week, killing at least five people.

"We received a directive from the federal Highway Administration this morning that asked all state departments of transportation to look at any bridge structures that were similar to the bridge that had collapsed," said Mark Richardson of the New Hampshire Department of Transportation.

New Hampshire has four such bridges, called deck-truss bridges. In addition to the Allenstown bridge, inspectors looked at the Queen City Bridge in Manchester and the Ashland-Bridgewater Bridge. The Sarah Long Bridge in Portsmouth will be inspected next week.

Officials said that the Queen City and Ashland-Bridgewater bridges passed inspection.

Two other bridges in New Hampshire are also of similar construction, but they are both footbridges.