...you're from Minnesota, Tina. Can you keep us up on what the locals are saying?

Fox here on the east coast is blaming it on faulty construction. I smell some onerous fallout.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKROB18596120070802

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - A bridge carrying a four-lane state highway across the Mississippi river in central Minneapolis collapsed during rush hour on Wednesday, plunging cars and trucks into the river.

The bridge carrying Route 35W, which was under repair, buckled and fell into the river at about 6:10 p.m. local time (0:10 a.m. British time), local media reported.

Witnesses said they heard a rumbling sound as the bridge collapsed into the river. Local media reported 20 to 30 injuries but initially no deaths.

Slideshow

I-35W Bridge Collapse Into Mississippi River

http://wcco.com/local/local_story_213191448.html

They are saying three dead and it wasn't the concrete that failed but the steel.

I just saw one eyewitness on the news (I think it was Ch 5 KSTP) say it buckled south to north. He reported two separate "geysers" of smoke from the south as it went, and none from the north. Also, many people who were on the bridge itself reported dropping 3-4 distinct times on the way down. There's a 9:00 news conference, see if there's any more info.

the 60 children are all alive. Hopefully they can get all the injured out of the area before the storm front hits.

I use to drive across that bridge up to 4 times a day 10 years ago. My parents just went across it last week.

My Girlfriend's daughter's boyfriend goes to school and works at the University of Minnesota which is situated on the eastern side of the bridge on the North side of the river. Thankfully, he is still at the school.

Oh, and just now some idiot asked if it was a terrorist act. You can just see the wing nuts frothing at the mouth. Thankfully, the governor strongly stated it was probably due to metal fatigue.

...I wish some tailless ape hadn't sent the nation on a murderous, hideously expensive little adventure halfway around the world then at least some of the funds wasted there could have been applied to fixing infrastructure like this overpass before it failed.

Seems to be a hallmark of this administration...disasters not averted, and count on the aftermath being half-assed and blamed on somebody else.

Every time I look at these photos I feel the same sick, disgusted feeling I had when the towers fell.....sorta like one is right there with the victims, feeling their terror and uncertainty.

At this point so late at night I wonder if I'll feel any better when we get an Executive who understands that helping the people means much, much more than just his orgy-pals and those with a 'R' after their names.....how many more disasters are we gonna see before then?

-5.75,-4.05 "I am in earnest; I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard."
William Lloyd Garrison
US abolitionist & editor (1805 - 1879)

If you ignore them, they'll go away.

The Brooklyn Bridge opened for business in 1883. It is older than the world's oldest human, yet it's still doing fine.

Why? Maintenance.

A bridge only fails after you stop maintaining it properly for years. Did some fool cut funds for bridge maintenance? If so, that fool should hang.

"Death before being dishonored any more." - Col. Ted Westhusing

Police: More Victims in Submerged Cars

Thursday August 2, 2007 2:46 PM

By JON KRAWCZYNSKI

Associated Press Writers

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Divers searched the Mississippi River on Thursday for more bodies entombed in cars trapped beneath the twisted steel and concrete slabs of a collapsed bridge. As many as 30 people were missing as the rescue effort shifted to recovery.

The official death count stood at four Thursday morning, but Police Chief Tim Dolan said more victims were still in the water.

``We have a number of vehicles that are underneath big pieces of concrete, and we do know we have some people in those vehicles,'' Dolan said Thursday morning. ``We know we do have more casualties at the scene.''

The eight-lane Interstate 35W bridge, a major Minneapolis artery, was in the midst of repairs when the bridge buckled during the evening rush hour Wednesday. Dozens of cars plummeted more than 60 feet into the Mississippi River, some falling on top one of another. A school bus hung at an angle on the concrete.

Under water, divers were taking down license plate numbers for authorities to track down their drivers. Getting the vehicles out was expected to take days and involve moving around very large, heavy pieces of bridge.

``The bridge is still shifting,'' Dolan said. ``We're dealing with the Mississippi River. We're dealing with currents. We're going to have to do it slowly and safely.''

He said police estimate that 20 to 30 people were unaccounted for, though he stressed that it was just an estimate.

Fire Chief Jim Clack said Thursday that emergency work was no longer a rescue operation. ``It's a recovery operation,'' he said.

more

... great time for political pandering. Bush just said this was all the Democrats fault for not passing spending bills. Even if that logic held and the money was doled out, getting the actual money and DOT or contractors to fix this bridge would be years down the road. Maybe someone should have passed spending bills on this years ago.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/8/2/95247/65430

US Infrastructure failure DIRECT result of GOP policies Hotlist
by SanJoseLady [Subscribe]
Thu Aug 02, 2007 at 09:36:03 AM CDT

First of all my thoughts and prayers are with those who have been effected in any way by the disaster yesterday in Minnesota. We are learning (from number of diaries here, one on the rec. list) that the bridge failure yesterday may well have been from the bridge being "structurally deficient."

The tragedy yesterday, sadly, is not isolated, and if our nation does not soon address the worn out, aging infrastructure system across our land, this bridge failure is going to repeat itself over, and over and over. Why is this? Why have we ignored the safety of our roads, of our bridges, of our buildings? Because the GOP is more concerned with cutting taxes then making sure our nation is safe.

More....

* SanJoseLady's diary :: ::
*

By now many of you are aware of the2005 report card from the AmericanSociety of Civil Engineers (ASCE), a report that gave our nations infrastructure an overall grade of D. The ASCE rated such things as "Bridges" (which was given a grade of C) and reported that:

Between 2000 and 2003, the percentage of the nation's 590,750 bridges rated structurally deficient or functionally obsolete decreased slightly from 28.5% to 27.1%. However, it will cost $9.4 billion a year for 20 years to eliminate all bridge deficiencies. Long-term underinvestment is compounded by the lack of a Federal transportation program.

The grades for many other critical infrastructure areas were given, for the most part, lower grades in 2005 then in 2001. Waste water, roads and our national Energy Power Grid continue to fall apart with little or no funding being allocated to address their dire condition.

more

I was listening to Stephanie Miller this morning and they brought the President's speech live this morning, and sure enough the President to blamed the Democratic Congress. Amazing.

Here's the Bridge Inspection Report: http://www.lrrb.org/pdf/200110.pdf

I'm not a Civil Engineer, but a Mechanical Engineer by trade so I'm treading on thin ice.

I made a very quick read-through, and I'll try to read it in more detail later, but some things I found intriguing: The "unanticipated distortion of the girders" and "lack of redundancy in the main truss system" strikes me as curious.

In the executive summary my read is: They saw fatigue damage. They were unclear why they saw the damage that they observed, but the report concluded that with the appropriate application of strain gauges, catastrophic failure could be avoided.

subject title stolen from dkos diary: A Metallurgist’s Insights Into the Minneapolis Bridge Disaster

I found this in their comments from Dana in MN:

Nick Coleman: Public anger will follow our sorrow

The cloud of dust above the Mississippi that rose after the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed Wednesday evening has dissipated. But there are other dark clouds still hanging over Minneapolis and Minnesota.

By Nick Coleman, Star Tribune

Last update: August 02, 2007 – 11:33 AM

For half a dozen years, the motto of state government and particularly that of Gov. Tim Pawlenty has been No New Taxes. It's been popular with a lot of voters and it has mostly prevailed. So much so that Pawlenty vetoed a 5-cent gas tax increase - the first in 20 years - last spring and millions were lost that might have gone to road repair. And yes, it would have fallen even if the gas tax had gone through, because we are years behind a dangerous curve when it comes to the replacement of infrastructure that everyone but wingnuts in coonskin caps agree is one of the basic duties of government.

I'm not just pointing fingers at Pawlenty. The outrage here is not partisan. It is general.

Both political parties have tried to govern on the cheap, and both have dithered and dallied and spent public wealth on stadiums while scrimping on the basics.

How ironic is it that tonight's scheduled groundbreaking for a new Twins ballpark has been postponed? Even the stadium barkers realize it is in poor taste to celebrate the spending of half a billion on ballparks when your bridges are falling down. Perhaps this is a sign of shame. If so, it is welcome. Shame is overdue.

...people start to take infrastructure for granted after a while. Drive over a bridge every day, to and from work, and you just stop thinking about it.

It can be sooooo easy to fall into the trap of thinking that large-scale engineering fixes are permanent. We look around and see the Hoover Dam, the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge (all of which are at least 70 years old, artifacts of the Roosevelt Administration), but conveniently forget the millions of dollars and man-hours that go into keeping them looking as good as they do.

-5.75,-4.05 "I am in earnest; I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard."
William Lloyd Garrison
US abolitionist & editor (1805 - 1879)

Before and After

>

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/02/bridge.collapse/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

Nick Coleman | Opinion | August 2

Star-Tribune - The cloud of dust above the Mississippi that rose after the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed Wednesday evening has dissipated. But there are other dark clouds still hanging over Minneapolis and Minnesota.

Both political parties have tried to govern on the cheap, and both have dithered and dallied and spent public wealth on stadiums while scrimping on the basics.

Diver prepare for another search; Bush to visit

By Sharon Cohen, Adam Geller, Associated Press

Last update: August 04, 2007 – 8:16 AM

Divers were preparing today to resume their search for cars and bodies in the swirling, muddy currents of the Mississippi Rover. President Bush was scheduled to visit, with a flyover of the site.

Of the roughly 100 people injured in Wednesday's collapse, 28 remain hospitalized and only five were critical.<

A rush-hour crawl that gave vehicles little momentum to slide into the river and a bridge design that minimized falling debris appear to have kept the death toll relatively low.

After divers spent a second day searching the waters, the number of dead stood at five, and authorities cast doubt on an earlier estimate that as many as 30 people were missing. They even said it could be as few as eight.

"We were surprised that we didn't have more people seriously injured and killed,'' Minneapolis Fire Chief Jim Clack told The Associated Press. "I think it was something of a miracle.''

Clack cited a list of reasons: a bridge design that minimized falling debris, a quick response by rescue crews and the rush-hour crawl that kept more vehicles from plunging into the river.

In addition, experts say the speed and depth of the water in the Mississippi River were much lower than normal on the day of the collapse — largely the result of a drought. That may have made it easier for people to escape the disaster.

"It's a horrible, tragic event. But it could have been a hell of a lot worse,'' said Kent Harries, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering in the University of Pittsburgh's School of Engineering.

more

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/us/20070803_BRIDGE_GRAPHIC.html#step1

US infrastructure

From the link:

"Despite soaring gas prices, few cities boast good public transit, and higher fares won't cover the bills. Chicago, for example, needs $6 billion just for subway repairs.

Some 3,500 U.S. dams are unsafe. Did you know we have 79,000? It would cost $30 billion to bring them all into compliance.

Trains? I read that the United States lags 'decades behind' global standards. It could cost $250 billion to catch up.

The EPA estimates another $300 billion to $500 billion will be necessary to repair and upgrade wastewater systems.

U.S. airports, crowded and inefficient, need a $14 billion annual cash infusion just to keep pace.

Roads? While traffic congestion in some big cities tripled over the past 25 years, experts say 97 percent need improvements."

-----

The potholes driving through Detroit are big enough to damage a large recreation vehicle.

Yet Bush takes the opportunity for another photo op? There must be an election in Minnesota!