This paper presents the design and evaluation of Wisden, a wireless sensor network system for structural health monitoring. Wisden aims to address the challenges of collecting and analyzing structural response data, which is crucial for detecting and localizing damage in buildings, bridges, ships, and aircraft. The system incorporates two novel mechanisms: reliable data transport using a hybrid of end-to-end and hop-by-hop recovery, and low-overhead data time-stamping without global clock synchronization. Additionally, the paper explores the applicability of wavelet-based compression techniques to reduce data rates and improve latency. The implementation of these mechanisms on Mica-2 motes is described, along with performance evaluations. The authors also report experiences from deploying Wisden on a large structure, highlighting the system's potential for practical structural monitoring applications.This paper presents the design and evaluation of Wisden, a wireless sensor network system for structural health monitoring. Wisden aims to address the challenges of collecting and analyzing structural response data, which is crucial for detecting and localizing damage in buildings, bridges, ships, and aircraft. The system incorporates two novel mechanisms: reliable data transport using a hybrid of end-to-end and hop-by-hop recovery, and low-overhead data time-stamping without global clock synchronization. Additionally, the paper explores the applicability of wavelet-based compression techniques to reduce data rates and improve latency. The implementation of these mechanisms on Mica-2 motes is described, along with performance evaluations. The authors also report experiences from deploying Wisden on a large structure, highlighting the system's potential for practical structural monitoring applications.