Minneapolis Bridge Collpase

[wesdor]

Any of our members up that way? 

I'm watching TV and this looks like a nightmare.  They just said at least 1 person is reported dead, but right now, they think the death toll will not be huge.

Let's pray for these people.

[Jeff]

Looks pretty bad.

[beenthere]

I just heard from my son in MSP, and he is ok. He was crossing the I90 bridge over the MS river, and said he had a thought about the bridge collapsing, and what a scary thought it was. Then a short while later heard about the I35W bridge disaster. Total dead is up to 6 now.
Our prayers be with them, and those that may still be trapped.

[asy]

Reports over here say 6 deceased, more expected.

Just awful.

I'm terrified of bridges. No bloody wonder. I especially hate small bridges, we have one near us that I have to go over to go shopping, and the first few times I'd all but shut my eyes to drive over it, it's so scary.
There ya go, see what ya made me go and admit!

Still, my thoughts go out to all the families and communities affected by this disaster.

asy  :'(

[footer]

I am  in Menomonie, WI. working for the week About 75 miles east of MSP.  Flew into MSP on Monday and leaving Thursday. Some of the people I work with were planning on going to the baseball game and would have been going over the bridge at about that time. For some wierd reason, they decided at the last minuite not to go.

[Gary_C]

Today I had so much to do on my way back up to haul another load of logs from that job north of the Twin Cities that I found myself in rush hour traffic at 6:00 in the cities. Fortunately I go around the east side on I-494 and across the Mississippi River on the new bridge in South St. Paul. I did not know anything happened until about 9:00 when my wife finally got thru on my cell phone. Apparently all circuits were busy until then.

Latest count I saw was 7 dead, 38 injured, and about 20 people unaccounted for accordind to calls to the state patrol.

What a tragedy.

[Warbird]

My prayers go out to everyone involved.

[dundee]

It is Thursday evening here, just heard on our 6 pm TV news and saw the carnage, gosh what a terrible accident, you have to wonder why?!!!

[tomboysawyer]

This is a tragic event and my heart goes out to the people and their families and friends.

It might have been avoided and that's the real tragedy. Hubby says every day he's fighting to fix bridges in his district - close them, which will inconvenience people, and get funds to fix them from empty coffers. Town leaders fight for engineering estimates on how serious a situation "really" is - and until there's a failure, it becomes a political play between convenience, economics, and safety.

Hubby works for state highway here in the east coast. He says the Federal gov. stopped funding repairs for Interstates in the 1990's. They take the tax dollars from fuel and spend it on new construction. States do not have the funds for repairs on major structures like this. I can only pray we learn now to value our engineers and pay to take care of our own infrastructure soon. He says I wouldn't want to know what holds up some of the bridges in his district that we drive over.

There are now videos online of the structure going down. I'm sure we'll get some very politically correct response that leaves no one in particular responsible. This is not Eisenhower's country any more. I know people on this forum are probably different, but we don't value the men and women who build and care for our infrastructure as we once did.

[Quartlow]

It's a terrible accident, and I do feel for the victims. But you reap what you sow. You got to figure these jobs are handed out to the lowest bidder. While there are design specs that are "supposed" to be followed you have to ask yourself how one company can do it cheaper than another without cutting a corner somewhere.
This country is going to learn someday cheap will only get you so far

Dad always said
You can have it cheap
You can have it good
Pick one!

[CHARLIE]

My son is a Civil Engineer for the Minnesota DOT and I assure you that low bids do not mean less quality. The State has specifications on design and material and they have very knowledgeable inspectors and project engineers that insure highways and bridges are built the way they were designed and with the material specified.

The bridge that collapsed was opened in 1967 and is the most heavily traveled bridge in Minnesota. Why it went down is not known, but the bridge was inspected yearly since the early 1990's. So it's not like it was neglected.  There is to be a State investigation to try and determine what happened and also an outside, independent engineering firm has been hired to also do a separate investigation. The state wants to know what happened because the collapse was totally unexpected. At this point I don't think it wise to make conjectures, guesses or accusations until the experts figure it out.

The firm where my daughter-in-law works had 15 people unaccounted for today. That's a lot for one company. Hopefully, some just decided to cool it and not come to work. It's obvious that the death toll is going to rise and I'm afraid substantially.