Massive Bridge Collapses in Minneapolis

[Sonny]

The Interstate Hwy. 35W bridge over the Mississippi River collapsed around 6:15 p.m. today, dumping at least eight cars and a truck into the water and land below. It was not clear how many people might be hurt or killed. ...

Hope everyone is OK up in the Twin Cities area:
http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1338294.html

[Sonny]

Some amazing photos here:
http://www.startribune.com/10136/gallery/1338445.html

[Hunt]

Rob Graff, the University of Minnesota-Duluth head coach, showed up for the Wednesday night men's summer league and brought the early news to the guys playing in the first games. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone involved in the situation. Hopefully everyone will be okay. On a related note, a lot of guys playing for the University of Minnesota live right in that area (it's right by the U of M campus). Let's hope none of them were taking 35W to the summer league games tonight, and that they are all safe as well.

What a tragedy. I know I'll be praying for all these people.

[Sonny]

What it used to look like

[Brent Burns]

Just got off from back to back paging my friend who lives in Minneapolis. She was walking to the Hyatt near where she lives, and it was around 6:05 pm when it happened. She just walked into the Hyatt and they were telling her to look at the TV. Their mouths dropped. Really felt bad for those driving during the rush hour.

With Sonny's posting of the slideshow pictures from the Star Tribune, I caught one poignant picture where you could see a long line of people standing on the bridge in the background that is opposite from the collapsed bridge. Could tell they were looking on the rescue going on at that time.

[UofMLaxGoalie11]

As Hunt mentioned, Wednesdays are our summer league night here in the Twin Cities. The field we play at is about a mile away from 35W further south of Minneapolis. That is a very likely route for anyone in the Minneapolis/University/Northern suburbs to be taking to the field. There was a much lower turnout tonight than most nights, most of which were probably unable to reach the fields due to traffic coming to a standstill.

According to the news reports so far, I have heard that 7 are confirmed dead and a figure of 37 for the number of people that were treated at local hospitals. I'm sure its actually higher. They reported that all the known survivors are off the debris now and that the search has now been moved to a recovery focus. Meaning that they will not put rescuers in harms way to expediently find other possible survivors. They have gone to the estimated 50 cars that are accessible and have removed all the survivors from those. There are several more cars that went into the river that will have to be searched and recovered in the following days. Divers have been called off for the night but will resume at first light. Currently, there is little to no reason to suspect that terrorism was involved. They were doing some cosmetic work on the bridge recently, but this was just to the road deck and should have no bearing on the structural integrity of the bridge. My prayers go out to all the victims and their families and am praying that none of our lacrosse brethren were affected by this tragedy.

[TexOle]

As a Minnesota resident who drove that bridge a few times, I did feel it was not well maintained. The potholes and appearance just drove me nuts. I have to wonder if the salt and winters in Minnesota aided in this collapse.

[UofMLaxGoalie11]

As a Minnesota resident who drove that bridge a few times, I did feel it was not well maintained. The potholes and appearance just drove me nuts. I have to wonder if the salt and winters in Minnesota aided in this collapse.

On the news they also said that there were inspections done in 2005 and 2006. The bridge was structurally sound after both. The bridge was around 40 years old, but I'm not sure if all the supporting structure was that old. A former transportation secretary estimated that it would be nearly two years before another bridge would be in place. That could cause several issues, being that the stretch of 35W there is one of the most common ways into downtown Minneapolis from the north.

[TexOle]

You mention the supporting structure which I am going to guess is the reason for the collapse. It was arches which are unbelievably strong. They have been used for milleniums for a good reason. That said they were metal which rusts. My guess is that structure weakened and something in it buckled slightly. The vibrations of the cars on the deck supported by a weak supporting structure led to the collapse.

Too much time with my grandmother and her love for architecture.

[sohotrightnow]

While it is tragic that this happened, I want to focus on another issue that is driving me insane: The media coverage and the various scenarios they are saying could be plausible explanations for why the bridge collapsed. The one explanation I have heard ad nauseam is that terrorism may or may not have played a role.

Example:

Mayor/Spokesman: "We believe that terrorism is not the cause of this tragic accident."

Well, if you believe that terrorism is not the cause, then why mention it at all? What purpose does this serve other than make (gullible) people believe that terrorism affects everything that we do every day? Can anything occur in the world without terrorism being named as a culprit? Oh, I broke my leg...must have been a terrorist. I got pulled over for speeding...a terrorist had a gun pointed at me. When will this madness end?

[bste_lax]

While it is tragic that this happened, I want to focus on another issue that is driving me insane: The media coverage and the various scenarios they are saying could be plausible explanations for why the bridge collapsed. The one explanation I have heard ad nauseam is that terrorism may or may not have played a role.

Example:

Mayor/Spokesman: "We believe that terrorism is not the cause of this tragic accident."

Well, if you believe that terrorism is not the cause, then why mention it at all? What purpose does this serve other than make (gullible) people believe that terrorism affects everything that we do every day? Can anything occur in the world without terrorism being named as a culprit? Oh, I broke my leg...must have been a terrorist. I got pulled over for speeding...a terrorist had a gun pointed at me. When will this madness end?

At least I don't have to hear about Lindsay Lohan/Britney Spears/Paris Hilton this week......yet....

[Sonny]

While it is tragic that this happened, I want to focus on another issue that is driving me insane: The media coverage and the various scenarios they are saying could be plausible explanations for why the bridge collapsed. The one explanation I have heard ad nauseam is that terrorism may or may not have played a role.

Example:

Mayor/Spokesman: "We believe that terrorism is not the cause of this tragic accident."

Well, if you believe that terrorism is not the cause, then why mention it at all? What purpose does this serve other than make (gullible) people believe that terrorism affects everything that we do every day? Can anything occur in the world without terrorism being named as a culprit? Oh, I broke my leg...must have been a terrorist. I got pulled over for speeding...a terrorist had a gun pointed at me. When will this madness end?

I have no idea why that bridge failed. But if you don't think terrorism could be a cause of relatively young major bridge crumpling to the ground in a major US City during rush hour traffic.... then just go ahead and blame Haliburton/Bush/Cheney right now.

Thinking about all of the possible causes of this major collapse including terrorism in the post 9/11 environment doesn't make you gullible - it makes you logical.

[Brent Burns]

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1ab_1186054443&p=1

The link above shows the live video of the bridge collapsing.

[Beta]

I agree with Sonny, anything is possible. It's kinda of stupid to just rule things out just to go against the grain.

From the video you can definitely see that the near-side trusses failed first, causing the entire center section to drop, then the near-side trusses broke, causing that end to hit the water first. Then the far side finally snapped. Such an awful thing. Hard to make light of it but at least that bus full of kids made it through the ordeal.

[Adam Gamradt]

On behalf of our team, thank you for your thoughts and concern.

Pretty much, everyone who drives has uses that bridge, it's the main thoroughfare through Minneapolis. It is an older style, built in 1967, with two support columns on dry land at either side, and it is about 1900 feet long. The trusses are not redundant. If one small section fails, the whole thing will come down, presumably what happened yesterday. It was stated during one of the previous inspections that the bridge needed rehabilitation, and would need to be replaced in the future. The date I heard was 2020. The inspection found the bridge did need work, and that work had begun. I believe one of the directions (southbound) was reduced to one lane, leading traffic to be very tight in and around the area.

There was ongoing resurfacing work, and people in the neighborhood reported hearing jackhammers in the days leading up to the collapse. I have no idea what caused this, but it does seem to me that the old style truss bridge was a contributing factor. A cable or suspension bridge would not have failed catastrophically.

As for the team, we are almost all accounted for, although one of our players had a very close call, exiting the ramp prior to the bridge, and just minutes before it collapsed. He was on his way home after work, to pick up a car full of guys to head to summer league. I am very thankful for that, as river has already claimed enough of us already.

There are some amazing photos under the multimedia section here:

http://www.startribune.com/

There is a very good description of the bridge, and it's history, here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Miss ... ver_bridge