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02 August 2007
This happened 5 minutes from my sister's place, and about 20 minutes from my parents'. I got a voice mail from my mom that she and my sister were okay, but I couldn't get back through to them for hours. My dad was playing a baseball game in a separate part of town, but it was still a big relief when he got home around 11pm. All that steel and rebar, mangled like it's just cardboard. Man.
The latest is that nine are confirmed dead, but they expect to find more victims in the water this morning. They had to stop the search last night because of the dark, the weather, and the dangerous conditions in the water.
I drove over this bridge just a few weeks back when I was visiting my family. *shudder*
I first heard about this when the clock radio went off this morning, and had one of those awful feelings of realizing, "Wait a minute, something BIG has happened." Ugh.
taz, on the news this morning they were saying that repairs were being carried out to repair 'fatigue cracks' in the bridge, but that the recent hot weather might have contributed to it too, causing metal supports within the concrete to buckle slightly in excessive heat.
Taz, of course, right now much of the speculation is media-fueled, in their attempt to be the first. So take it all, as usual, with a grain of salt. So far, the information I've heard is that the bridge passed inspection both in 2005 and 2006, but there was apparently a report put out in 2001 that suggested that the bridge had the "potential" for failure.
The local paper has a story regarding possible causes. Evidently that report I talked about was in 2005, not 2001 as I heard last night. Stupid inaccurate breaking news.
You may or may not need to register. I think they let you look at a story or two before registering, so if you get a login page, try clearing your startribune.com cookies.
Oh, those poor people!!! I can't even imagine. Horrible. I'm so glad your family is safe, Mike. I keep thinking of one of my co-workers whose son is visiting friends out there, but I'm not sure where. I hate it when stuff like this happens!!
Just in case anyone can't reach the site that mike linked, an expert is saying that, possibly, "vibration from the construction work and from a train that was passing under the bridge contributed to the collapse."
... but, "[Jim Burnett] also said he was intrigued by a 2005 study that found signs of 'fatigue cracking' in the bridge supports, though he noted that a later report apparently concluded that the bridge was in no immediate danger and did not need major repairs.
'I think that decision is going to come under new scrutiny,' he said."
Link, BP? That seems really weird. Did they count some people twice? And one three times? Or were they able to resuscitate some of the drowning victims?
This bridge is less than a mile from my house; I drive over it *all* the time, as does pretty much anyone who lives in or moves through central Minneapolis.
My electricity went out at the moment the collapse occurred (my power lines were carried on, or were under, the bridge) so I didn't know what the hell was going on at first (no TV, no internet, no radio), all I knew was that there were an unbelievable number of sirens passing very near by. Finally I got someone on my cell who filled me in.
A close friend had crossed the bridge on her way home about 15 minutes before it fell. I just -- all I can do is sit here in shock, still. It seems so *unreal,* which of course is a cliche, but one finds oneself talking in cliches in such circumstances.
BP, sadly, the fatality count will go back up. There are around 20 people missing, and anyone who was on the bridge and didn't get rescued last night is probably no longer alive; it's clear a number of cars that ended up in the water didn't fall clear, but got buried under debris. It may take a while to recover all victims.
It doesn't appear to be online yet, mike, but CNN is reporting it (via AP) at the top of this page(and on the air, which is where I'm watching).
I bet people got counted twice at the scene, miscommunication between rescuers and police in the heat of the moment and all that.. They said it was the coroner who revised the count, I assume once the bodies started arriving.
As kat points out, though, there are still a lot of folks missing, so nobody really knows yet what the toll will be.
What taz said. Our thoughts are with you guys and anyone you may know.
This is sort of a minor thing, but why is CNN linking to WISN as their source for non-network coverage? WISN is in Milwaukee.
I suppose they don't have a Twin Cities affiliate, but it just seems weird.
As for the why, well, obviously something didn't hold things up the way it should. Maybe the inspections missed something. Maybe the construction work affected something. Certainly, the report on the bridge's condition that recommended no action was ... flawed.
I just hope the analysis of what happened doesn't get spiked the way so much of the WTC and Katrina analysis did. Engineering depends on openness and transparency. This should not happen in the U.S. of all places, not in this day and age, and we'd better find out exactly why it did.
I had such a hard time sleeping last night thinking about this, trying to work through my head how I would get the kids out of their car seats and to shore. I'm going to have to practice swimming with the baby in my arms and make the girl practice her "float if you get tired" technique tonight. I so hope the people who died were dead when they hit the water. I just can't imagine the terror.
My husband is working on a major road overhaul right now with lots of bridges and overpasses in an area with rampant sink hole problems. Supposedly the engineers took the instability into account, but I'm still not very confident. It's all so scary.
From this morning's Star Tribune: "Stanek and Minneapolis police chief Tim Dolan said cars are trapped beneath the water under crumpled concrete and Stanek knows bodies are there. During rescue operations Wednesday night, divers saw victims in submerged cars before darkness postponed the work." Gaahhhh.
That's a terrible place to do water recovery; it's just below the Lock and Dam and the currents can be pretty hairy. I guess the current drought isn't entirely a bad thing, since at least it means the water levels are lower.
Many victims don't make it out of cars that hit the water because they waste energy and breath trying to open the car door before the car is completely submerged. The pressures have to equalize before the door will open, but it should open easily at that point. As impossible as it must be to resist panic, the way to survive in a sinking vehicle is to relax and wait.
I think our high school driving instructor told us not to push on the door, but to roll down the window, which is possible even with horizontal pressure against the door. The water will come flooding in but supposedly you can breathe from near the roof of the car and when the flow stops, slip out the window and float upward.
Sounds good in a textbook sense, but overcoming the urge to panic, and actually allowing water to flood into your car, is counterintuitive and I doubt many people could manage it.
mike and everyone else in the area I hope your loved ones hold strong. I find it extraordinary that a report finds structural problems (which are the most serious) and a subsequent report dismisses the first one. WTF.
Resonance (as it sounds from your descriptions) is a major problem in bridge engineering, but somehow it sounds odd that a truck and a drill would do it, this looks like a major bridge...
Last week I was driving on GW bridge in Manhattan on the lower level and I really thought about bridges collapsing etc. Tunnels are no good either...
*on preview, I think too the idea is that pressure will equalize if there's enough water in the car. If the car submerges fast, well, ....
I've always heard about rolling down the window... but in these days of all-electric everything, I suppose there's no actual handle to roll down the window? I don't really know, because I hate cars and get inside them as little as I possibly can, without being hated by everyone.
I once read something by someone who claimed to carry a window punch on his person at all times for this very reason.
Mythbusters did a great episode on escaping from a submerged car. The "wait until it fills up then open the door" method worked best.
I have a window punch/hammer thingy in my car with a razor on the back to cut through seat belts. Strangely enough, mr. rossi is terrified of driving over bridges, so we've always had the equipment and a plan. (I'm big on knowing survival strategies for scary situations. It's a coping mechanism, I guess.)
It's so awful - this thread was actually the first I'd heard about it and gods, I'm just so sorry for all the minneapolitans. What a dreadful thing.
Bridge collapses are such a visceral fear and so many people share it. I remember when I lived in Charleston and the old Cooper River Bridge was judged to be one of the 10 most dangerous in the country; you could take a boat underneath it and just see all the crumbling, dying concrete pilings. I was terrified of it. So they painted it. Like the paint was going to hold it together (it finally got replaced about 5 years ago.) That's one of the reasons I don't want to own a car with electric windows; I insist on one with the old fashioned roll up roll down cranks.
I hate heights and have an overactive imagination, and lots of times I've been driving across the bridges over the Mississippi here- and they're really, really high up, the river runs through a gorge through most of the Twin Cities- and imagined how fucking horrible it would be if it collapsed. And then I've always comforted myself by thinking that we've got an unusually good public safety apparatus looking after things. Nope.
A Minneapolis community site (the one run by Astro Zombie, and I think he was the one who dug this up) posted this weirdly prescient Onion article...
Cobra!, were you here in the days before they replaced the Lake Street bridge? Because the old one, now *there* was one scary bridge. Especially coming onto it from St. Paul -- you go down that steep hill past the golf course, and nowadays it's still pretty steep, but back then the bridge sort of sagged, instead of arcing upwards the way the current one does, so you felt like you were swooping down into the gulley of a roller coaster. And damn, the thing was rickety--I remember walking across it in its final few years of life, and looking down through gaping holes in the sidewalk straight down into the river.
I'm moving to Seattle in a few weeks, and have already resolved that I need to arrange my work/residential situation there so that I'm crossing bridges as seldom as possible.
when I lived in Charleston and the old Cooper River Bridge
Ok, that bridge used to freak ME out, and I'm not scared of bridges or heights or anything like that. My partner refused to drive on it, in fact (he'd just make me drive!).
I'm glad I never knew how bad it looked from the water.
Cobra!, were you here in the days before they replaced the Lake Street bridge? Because the old one, now *there* was one scary bridge. Especially coming onto it from St. Paul -- you go down that steep hill past the golf course, and nowadays it's still pretty steep, but back then the bridge sort of sagged, instead of arcing upwards the way the current one does, so you felt like you were swooping down into the gulley of a roller coaster. And damn, the thing was rickety--I remember walking across it in its final few years of life, and looking down through gaping holes in the sidewalk straight down into the river.
I don't think I was-- if I was, I never crossed there until the new bridge was in (moved here in '97). That sounds pretty nasty, though, especially since the gorge is higher there.
I used to (reluctantly) walk over the bridge directly east of 35W (10th Avenue Bridge) to get to Dinkytown and I lived in the Seven Corners Apartment buildings overlooking both bridges. This is so surreal. I keep seeing my old apartment in all the photos shot from the North.
Anyway, the traffic on that bridge (35W) is insane. Tons of commuters everyday and people typically (not sure with the amount of construction) fly over that bridge.
Anyway, I am terrified of bridges as a general rule. This probably won't make that fear better or worse as it all just seems so surreal right now.
Nevertheless, it is horrible to have something hit so close to home and having too many people to reach out to. I simply wouldn't know where to start.
This should not happen in the U.S. of all places, not in this day and age
I disagree. America's transportation infrastructure dates back to the Eisenhower administration; after 40 years of our elected officials putting budget priorities elsewhere, the chickens are coming home to rust. er, make that roost.
Yep, Triode is right: infrastructure hasn't been a top political and economic priority in the U.S. in decades. I have to admit one of the first things I thought when I heard about this (approximately 3 seconds after thinking "holy SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!") was "hell, the only miracle is that this actually doesn't happen more."
photo by splunge
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