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Holy crap, the 35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed less than an hour ago. The images on TV are insane.

Thirty to fifty cars were on the bridge including a school bus full of children. From aerial video it looks like more than a couple people are hurt, no word yet on any fatalities…which can only be a good thing so far. I hope the ones I see hurt are the only ones. Although at the back of my mind I’m wondering what’s underneath all that concrete and metal. I’m also noticing alot of gasoline floating on the surface of the water….with burning trucks on the bridge they better hope the river itself doesn’t ignite.

No words yet on what caused it. Some have raised the spectre of possibly terrorism, but I would be very cautious of that. There is certainly nothing indicating that at this point. I do see construction equipment in the area, so it’s possibly they were doing some work on it, or it was brought it for rescue work.

I guess my first thought is, what the hell? Bridges don’t collapse anymore. We’ve been building bridges for thousands of years, we got this thing down. How does a bridge just collapse without earthquakes or tornadoes or whatever?? Answer : They don’t.

I guess I’m also wondering how this is likely to play out. Certainly it’s gonna be at least a year before they get another one built. There’s gonna be investigations, lawsuits and non-stop grandstanding. But certainly this is not a good time to be working at MNDOT.

Very bad timing, not that there is a good one though. Yeah, it was during rush hour but at least it was the tail end. Yeah, it was during the summer but at least it wasn’t the start of summer.

It does occur to me that this happens literally the day before hundreds of Republicans come to town to plan the 2008 National Republican Convention. With the collapse less than 24 hours before the start of that meeting, does that put the convention at jeopardy for Minnesota?? Certainly both Minneapolis and St. Paul have already sunk alot of time, effort and money into that. Does the RNC now decide it’s not a good location, especially since I’m not entirely certain a new bridge would be in place for 2008??

Of course those are all petty things compared to the immediate concerns of getting the people still on that bridge to safety. And it is nice to see nearby residents helping out victims. We even saw one guy paddle his KAYAK over to the collapsed section. What he’s planning on accomplishing with a kayak I have no idea, but he gets an A for effort.

UPDATE : It is absolutely disgusting to see how the liberals respond to this. We don’t even know why it collapsed yet but they are reading to hang Pawlenty and Bush over it. In their eyes…

1. Bridge collapses
2. ????
3. Profit!!! (Bush and Pawlenty blamed)

Now they are just trying to figure out step 2….disgusting.

UPDATE : So I’m trying to decide if that fact that it’s now a “recovery” operation rather than a “rescue” mission is a good thing or bad? On one hand, it means everyone that can be rescued has been, on the other hand considering the number of cars involved here, does that mean there were alot of people who could not be rescued?? Six deaths confirmed….although I’m already hearing rumors of more. Let’s hope that’s all they are.

UPDATE : They had bomb-sniffing dogs going over the wreckage. Ok, not surprising. I absolutely cringed when I heard witnesses talking on the news when they’d say things like “…it was like a bomb…”. I understand why they say it, it’s an easy and universal comparison, but it’s this same sort of loose talk that conspiracy theorists latch onto. We got enough to worry about without people claiming terrorists were involved.

UPDATE : I keep going back to my initial reaction “Bridges just don’t collapse in the US”. This is not something that happens. Oh sure, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc, then it happens. Little rickety neglected wooden bridges to take carts across stream, yeah then it happens. But bridges, especially very large and heavily constructed steel bridges just don’t collapse. I’m stuck wondering, how?

Reportedly the bridge was just inspected last year, and while they found signs of fatigue, they found no cracks and they did not force MN DOT to replace the bridge. And really it’s only 40 years old and it’s made of steel. Plus construction crews were on it at the time of collapse so it’s not like it was being neglected.

Pull all that together and I haven’t answered my own damn question, but I keep coming back to it. Certainly I’ll be very interested in what happened. I see people speculating about construction on the bridge but that was concrete work, not steel work. I’ve heard mention that a train was going underneath at the time (indeed it was crushed by the collapse) and I guess I don’t buy it. I’ve heard people point out bumper to bumper traffic, hell we have that all the time. I’ve heard people point out the heat….well it was less than 90 degrees at the time. Maybe all of it together?? I still don’t buy it, all of those have been in combination lots of times before. It still doesn’t make sense.

UPDATE : Ugh, 7 dead….and reportedly expected to increase.

Although it’s worth remembering the good things here. That school bus of kids?? All safe. All those people on the bridge, after getting out of their cars instead of running away, they helped others. First responders were people from nearby apartment buildings. Some bright spots in all this.

UPDATE : Just heard someone on Channel 5, although I missed the name. He was claiming that the inspection last year saw cracks….NOTHING I have read indicates that. And since the guy was trying to blame the state and lack of funding I suspect he was exaggerated just trying to point fingers.

UPDATE : And like clockwork they immediatly interview a “bridge expert” who states that MN DOT does an “excellent job” inspecting their bridges. And apparently that report states that cracks are “not likely”, and that it just recommended monitoring FOR fatigue cracking. It does not state there WAS cracking. I’m trying to find this report online….I’m sick of going off what I’m hearing from media. Federal requirements are every two years, MN DOT does it every year.

UPDATE : 2001 Inspection Technical Report can be found here. Still working on the 2006 one.

UPDATE : Ok it’s kinda amusing to hear FoxNews describe what Minnesotans are like. I feel like we’re the subject of a National Geographic special or something.