Bridge Collapses in Minneapolis

“I'm ashamed to be part of the TT community some times. This is one of those times.”
StoveStomper
6:29:58 PM
8/01/07


the nerve of you. you go and post what ever you want then get your feeling hurt and then start to cry. boohoo

If you are so ashamed, then please leave. DEAR GOD LEAVE ALREDY! you post just to see your name.”

“nothing to say stove? big man got his hands slapped? are you going to report this message now? you are all over this website. on every thread. I go and look and there you are with your big mouth wide open. Well maybe it is time for you to close it. please try to restrain yourself once in a while.”

“In wonder if folks could leave their #&%!$ing egos behind once and a while.


For anyone who has lost loved ones or may have loved ones still among the missing and are reading this thread, my heart goes out to you.”

“My mom has friends up there that she hasn't been able to get in contact with. Not good.”

“What a nightmare. I've always hated being stopped in traffic on a bridge for any length of time.

Oh, and smug righteous indignation is as ugly as making inapropriately light hearted remarks.”

“This is a horror that can happen anywhere with the age and condition of some bridges. I won't be surprised if this happens in Pennsylvania someday. Plenty of bridges are old and in bad shape. The bridge decks look like they've been quilted with all the patchwork done on them from repairs.”

“http://www.charlotte.com/multimedia/galleries/gallery/220861.html

bridge photos”

“They lowered the death toll to 4, but the believe it will rise. 20 people still unacounted for.

God bless all involved with this tragety!

Kudos to all the emergency workers and civilians that have helped out.”

“Horrible.

I would expect more of these in the future rather than less.  But perhaps this tragedy can prevent others.”

“Graska, so glad to hear your daughter is safe!

Speaking of old bridges, when I first saw this news headline online last night, my first thought was the bridge from DeSoto, WI to Lansing, IA - a bridge the feds have been trying to close for awhile now, but that keeps on getting repaired instead. If it was closed, word was the traffic count wasn't high enough to warrant a new bridge. Yet its closure would leave a 60-mile stretch with no bridge across the river, which is fairly unheard of these days in the fairly well-populated Midwest.

Here's more info...

The Army Corps of Engineers website:
http://www.mvp.usace.army.mil/navigation/

The ACE navigational map for the area:
http://www2.mvr.usace.army.mil/NIC2/Documents/MissRiver/Map008-851-858.pdf

They also have documents showing a drawing of each bridge in order, its design and facts on it. Here's the one containing I-35W:
http://www2.mvr.usace.army.mil/NIC2/Documents/MissRiver/Map008-D.pdf”

“Not positive, but believe this is the press release on the construction project:
http://www.dot.state.mn.us/metro/news/07/07/23wkendlaneclosures35w.html”

“I am thankful that your daughter wasn't on the bridge and you can breathe easy.”

“..am I the only one who is scared when I get stuck in traffic on a bridge????.....I thought maybe it was just my paranoia.....”

“Thanks for your thoughts about the tragic bridge collapse.
During my college years at the University of Minnesota, every day I walked over the Mississippi River on the next two down stream bridges from the I-35W bridge. From the helicopter views, you can see the 10th Avenue bridge a couple of hundred yards down stream and the Washington Avenue bridge a 1/4 mile further.
The U of M campus is split by the Mississippi (East & West Bank campuses). I imagine there will be a number of uneasy walks across the bridges in the coming months.

Not since the Armistice Day blizzard in 1940 and the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald 1975 has there been this much national coverage and local shock over a single Minnesota event.”

“What's the latest?
Been in therapy this morning.
Everybody checked in?”

“Link to a security cam that captured the bridge collapsing.

YIKES!

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=75a_1186068411”

“Saw that this morning, big time yikes!”

“How many lanes across?  (6? 8?)  Those cars look awfully small ---”

“I think they said there were 6 lanes across, but two were closed for the construction project.”

“The local news was finished and I hadn't switched the channel before Katie Couric came on. Katie in Minnesota interviewed a woman missing her youngest sister. The tears, emotion and then the woman's older sister, more tears, blah, blah, blah. It goes on for a while with a photo montage, back to the first sister, on and on.

Finally back to Couric, who says they got the good news and their sister is safe.

WTF? What happened to the news? We get a docu-drama that is all hype? Back to Fox News for a review of the facts.

Who enjoys watching people sobbing on television? What possesses people to take their raw emotions and turn it into entertainment?”

“Here's a good graphic on the bridge. There were eight traffic lanes:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20089341/”

“bacpac, here's more "news" from Katie regarding this ...

Couric Presumes Taxes Must Be Raised
to Repair Infrastructure

http://www.mrc.org/cyberalerts/2007/cyb20070803.asp#2

Neglecting any thought about cutting spending anywhere within the federal budget, for instance some of the soaring entitlement spending, CBS's Katie Couric on Thursday night wondered if taxpayers are "ready to spend" the "trillions" needed to repair the nation's infrastructure.”

“I've been watching it on the news too and this morning they said that bridge had 3000 feet of cracks that had been fixed and one crack was 4 feet long. They said some cracks you can't see and need x-ray machines to see during a bridge inspection. They didn't say if they used x-rays on that bridge.

I spent two winters in Minneapolis for a total of 6 months and the people were so friendly. It's a great city with great people and a shame something like this happened.”

“Two Minnesota winters = 18 months:)”

“It gets cold for sure in Minnesota, but the one winter I spent there wasn't bad. It does seem like Minneapolis has non stop winds. At least they had small shelters to stand in while waiting for the bus. I remember the bus system was pretty good to get around the city.”

“Lets see.Senator Patty Murray has started the BLAME BUSH game

So Patty lets see about all the necessary expenditures your state made (rather than taking care of the infrastructure)...

From the 2006 Minn Piglet Book

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:3fMX62MHhJsJ:www.taxpayersleague.org/pdf/2006PigletBook.pdf+Minnesota+spending+transportation+infrastructure+2006&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

ITS CALLED ...PORK gang.

JUST some of the$636 million in wasteful spending not counting Twins Statium....

but here are the highlights.

The state bailout of the Minneapolis Teacher's Retirement Fund, which puts state taxpayers on the hook for $972 million in unfunded liabilities
A new $776 million Twins Stadium to be paid for with a Hennepin County sales tax increase -- (approved by state legislators with no voter referendum)
$97.5 million for the Northstar Commuter Rail line
$34 million in subsidies to ethanol producers that have seen a 300 percent increase in profits in the last year
$30 million for bear exhibits at the Minnesota and Como Zoos
$12 million to renovate the Shubert Theater in downtown Minneapolis
$1 million for a replica Vikings ship in Moorhead
$500,000 for a skating rink in Roseville
$310,000 for a Shakespeare festival in Winona
$129,000 for state art grants for North Dakota museums and theaters

I am sorry but we are back on the trail with the Obese wannabe with the 65lb pack....”

“Everyone now gets to view this tragedy through whatever issue looking glass they choose. Welfare, War, Politics, Economics, Race, ....
I think even in a Utopian world bridges fall down.”

“shade... did you see I wrote back to your PM on the other side?”

“Shade...in a Utopian world ...would they even NEED bridges?”

“Death Toll Rises to 5, 8 Still Missing

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,291933,00.html”

“considering the scale of this, 5 killed isn't as bad as I would of thought....I hope those families who lost loved ones can find comfort somehow.

We had an article in the paper today about our bridges...our county has 57 bridges that are in VERY bad shape and are used heavily---and I use them on a daily basis-- one even has a low score of 7...... and anything with a score lower then 50 gets the structually unsound classification. YIKES!
last edited: 8/03/07 3:15:56 PM”

“Yes, Illinois hsd a large number of faulty bridges on the list, too.”

“Hi NS!...see ya later!!”

“I'm back in town. Engineers have been screaming for years that infrastructure maintenance is horrible and the % of structurall defiecient bridges are everywhere. No one listened. As you've now read, the percentage of bad bridges is sky high.”

“Michigan DOT inspects their bridges on a 3-year cycle (I believe, I used to help on some of the inspections). They do prioritize the repairs, but just like everything else, the money is spread thin.

I anticipate structural engineers will become busier in the next several months/years as funding suddenly appears.”

“Got it Lizs.
Thanks”

“Was the final death toll 5? I haven't seen the news in a few days. It is a horrible tragedy and I feel for the families. At the same time, I'm shocked that the toll wasn't 5-10x that amoung. It's something of a miracle to me.

I certainly hopes this means that money can now be found to fix the problem. There was a bill several years back Tea-21 or something like that, that allocated several billions dollars for road construction. It's going to take lots more to fix these issues. The unfortunate part of structural engineering issues is that the public doesn't act until there are deaths.”

“"If it ain't broke don't fix it" is a very commonly used phrase. Unfortunately that phrase doesn't consider that when some things break, people die.”

“It's never an issue until something happens. Then, once the barn is on fire, everyone goes into action.

Once the smoke clears and the rubble is cleaned up, unfortunately, it will be back to business as usual.”

“Confirmed death toll stands at 5 with 8 more missing and presumed dead. Even so... the raw numbers are surprisingly low from a statistical stand point. Shockingly high from a human loss perspective.”

“When I first heard of it, they called it "Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiancy Act" (ISTEA -- "ice-tea").  It comes up for reauthorization every 5 or 7 years(?).... and is quite famous for being loaded up with pork by whomever is in power at the time.

Seems like they change the name each time it comes around, too:

The Surface Transportation and Uniform Relocation Assistance Act of 1987
The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991
The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21)
The Safety Accountability Fairness Efficiency Transportation Equity Act (2005)”

“Agreed Rev, it's easy for us to say 13 isn't "bad." It's the worst event in your families history if you're one of the 13. I don't want to sound like I'm minizing the huge loss to those families in any way. I'm just trying to say that an 8 lane bridge that looked to be several hundred feet long in a metro area at rush hour had to have tons of cars on it.


Thanks for the info Tilt. I seem to remember about 4-5 years ago that ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) was really excited about the funding because of the huge amount of infrastructure it would shore up. I think that was probably the first time where I learned that about 1/4 of the bridges in this country were in poor shape.”

“Here is a link to a guy's blog. He was driving on River Road as the collapse happened. It's a pretty amazing read.

http://patheticlittleworld.blogspot.com/”

“CNN now reports a 6th body has been found.

http://robots.cnn.com/2007/US/08/09/bridge.collapse.ap/index.html”

“Now make that 7 bodies. Two today. Same link.”

“I finally had the time to sit down and read this thread...so sad.....”

“Even in the Anchorage Daily News, a week after the event, there was several different articles throughout the paper that I picked up from the hub, barely out of the wilderness it was a shock to read about. Back home, I drive over that bridge all the time, guess I won't for a while.”

“I watched the news last night and it said they found the cause of the bridge collapse. The gusset plates that hold the span together were only a half inch thick and were too thin. They said those gussets plates should be 1 inch thick. Since they are easily seen during an inspection, it seems strange that nobody noticed the defect and reported that the metal was too thin for the job.”

“HMM check the General, and The Structural Engineer.”

“somebody is gonna get their butt sued off....”