Minneapolis bridge collapse

[Reaves]

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22175940-2,00.html?from=mostpop

Doesn't sound good at all.

A FREEWAY bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis has collapsed, sending at least eight cars and a truck into the river.
The four-lane bridge was packed with rush-hour traffic. At least three sections of the bridge had collapsed and there was a danger a fourth might collapse.

Tonnes of concrete have collapsed and witnesses said 20-30 people have been injured. There has been no confirmation of deaths although there was one report of at least two.
There are fears that vehicles may be sandwiched under the main bridge span.
Aerial footage of the collapse showed cars and other vehicles strewn across the collapsed bridge. Cars hung over the edge of the collapsed bridge, trucks were cut in two or on fire and other vehicles lay precariously on collapsed sections of the structure, footage showed.
One witness said as many as 20 cars could have plunged into the water, with vehicles piled on top of each other.

Local television stations captured video of injured people being carried up the riverbank. There was no immediate word on injuries, but dozens of rescue vehicles were there. Divers were also in the water.
Some people were stranded on parts of the bridge that were not completely in the water.
The entire span of the 35W bridge collapsed about 6.15pm (9.15am AEST) where the freeway crosses the river near University Avenue.

Witnesses said they heard a rumbling sound as the bridge collapsed into the river.
"First I heard this huge roar," Leone Carstens, a nearby resident, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
"I was at my computer. Initially I thought, Wow was that an airplane?"
One witness said she saw people swimming in the water seeking safety.
Huge chunks of the bridge stuck at odd angles out of the river, in places surrounded by cars half submerged in the water.
A nursing supervisor at Hennepin county medical centre interviewed by local WCCO radio said, "We have multiple patients. Some critical, some non-critical," he said.
Asked if there were any deaths, he said: "Not that I know of."
The road was carrying bumper to bumper traffic when the 160m steel arch bridge collapsed. The bridge, built in 1967, was 20m above the river.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation told local media that 200,000 cars a day used the bridge.

Local media said a school bus taking children back to the city from a field trip was among the vehicles involved.
Reports on Sky News said all the children got out of the school bus, although some were injured.
Workers had been repairing the 40-year-old bridge’s surface as part of improvements along that stretch of the interstate.
A NEWS.com.au reader in Minneapolis claimed a safety report last year said beams on the bridge were cracked.
Ramon Houge of St Paul was on his way home from work at Wells Fargo and was driving on the bridge when he heard a rumbling noise, saw the ground collapse and cars go down, StarTribune.com (http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1338294.html) reported.
He said cars backed up as best they could and he parked in a construction zone and was finally able to turn around and drive off the bridge.
“It didn’t seem like it was real,” he said.
Traffic was bumper to bumper and hundreds of people would have been involved, he said, adding that he saw kids on the bus with blood on their faces.
Sarah Fahnhorst, who lives in an apartment a block away from the bridge, heard a huge thud and then “the entire building shook. It shook the ground.”

[waste gate]

Local media report up to 50 injuries; 3 Dead...

Divers in the water......

[Reaves]

Local media report up to 50 injuries; 3 Dead...
Peak hour traffic, sadly I expect the number to rise.

In 1975 a bridge collapsed in Hobart down here and that caused 12 fatalities, you'd think a lot more people were using the Minneapolis one during the incident.

[waste gate]

Fires continue to burn......

Six critical injuries at hospital.......


One drowning victim with more expected.........

Trickle ins expected in hospital over the evening...

[LobsterBoy]

I live in a suburb and can say I've traveled this bridge many times. It's a major bridge right in the downtown area of Minneapolis. In fact, it's only blocks from the stadium where a baseball game was beginning an hour after the bridge collapsed. The game is being played simply to keep the thousands of people from adding to the chaos

I'm still trying to get my head around this as my wife travels this bridge almost daily (she was already home).

Beyond the obvious tragedy the after effects of losing a major highway will be felt for some time.

[waste gate]

When I was very young(one to six years) I lived in Coon Rapids.

[LobsterBoy]

:o

I DO live in Coon Rapids!!!

[waste gate]

:o

I DO live in Coon Rapids!!!

Like I said I was very young. I remember things like catepillers, humming birds, learning how to ride a bicycle, snow forts, being biten on my side by a dog and having a woman chase me away for having a pee in the street, kindergarten. Those were great times.

[bradclark1]

Our rail system, bridges and older cities infrastructure is in really bad shape. A program I saw last week said it would cost 2 trillion dollars to fix everything.:o

[waste gate]

The bus visible on the bridge was filled with 60 children. As of now all were taken off the bus without anything more than abrasions or no injury. I understand that they have all been reunited with their parents.

[waste gate]

Hell, now I'm hearing that two school buses are in the water. I pray that isn't the case.

If that is the case, I'll cry tomorrow.

[Reaves]

I heard one bus was involved and all children ok but two in the water??

Damn.


My thoughts are with any who may have family and friends in the area.

[fatty]

Our rail system, bridges and older cities infrastructure is in really bad shape. A program I saw last week said it would cost 2 trillion dollars to fix everything.:o

What level of government has jurisdiction over this kind of infrastructure in the U.S.? Up here in the great white north this would fall under municipal jurisdiction but maybe I am wrong. Just curious.

[waste gate]

Our rail system, bridges and older cities infrastructure is in really bad shape. A program I saw last week said it would cost 2 trillion dollars to fix everything.:o

What level of government has jurisdiction over this kind of infrastructure in the U.S.? Up here in the great white north this would fall under municipal jurisdiction but maybe I am wrong. Just curious.

Don't worry there will be plenty of blame to go around. I was wondering when this would come up. Didn't take long. I don't know what your motivation is fatty, but be assured that government is involved.

[fatty]

Our rail system, bridges and older cities infrastructure is in really bad shape. A program I saw last week said it would cost 2 trillion dollars to fix everything.:o

What level of government has jurisdiction over this kind of infrastructure in the U.S.? Up here in the great white north this would fall under municipal jurisdiction but maybe I am wrong. Just curious.

Don't worry there will be plenty of blame to go around. I was wondering when this would come up. I don't know what your motivation is fatty, but be assured that government is involved.

My motivation is to learn, friend. When bradclark mentioned that it would cost 2 tril to repair infrastructure and prevent future tragedies like this, I was curious who would be responsible for that, since I know zilch about levels of government and their respective jurisdictions in the U.S.

[nikimcbee]

:o

I DO live in Coon Rapids!!!

Dude, who are you? I graduated from Coon Rapids!!!:rock: :rock: :rock: Class o' 90!:rock: :know:

Anyway, local news:
www.wcco.com (http://www.wcco.com)
www.kstp.com (http://www.kstp.com)
www.startribune.com (http://www.startribune.com)

live radio feed
http://webclust1.liquidcompass.cc/sos4stnrd/audio_player.php?id=KSTPAM


That bridge is down town, near Uof M

http://wcco.com/slideshows/local_slideshow_213210219/view?slide=0

[nikimcbee]

:hmm: When I was very young(one to six years) I lived in Coon Rapids.

What part of town?

[bradclark1]

What level of government has jurisdiction over this kind of infrastructure in the U.S.? Up here in the great white north this would fall under municipal jurisdiction but maybe I am wrong. Just curious.
Federal highways and bridges are state and fed.
State highways secondary and primary and bridges are state.
Rail is a combination of Railroads, State, and Feds.
Cities would be responsible for their own infrastructure with federal help.
But, whenever any state and some local work needs doing they can usually get some sizable grants from the Feds. However its like pulling teeth to get the states to spend the money because politicians don't want to pass the cost in taxes because they want to keep their jobs.
It's the same in all politics, "Let someone else worry about it" but not them.
Obviously there are a lot of ifs, ands, and buts to everything.

Don't worry there will be plenty of blame to go around. I was wondering when this would come up. Didn't take long. I don't know what your motivation is fatty, but be assured that government is involved.:roll: ????
Don't worry waste gate it takes longer then six years to get this way.

[Mystic]

I, too, had driven over that bridge many, many times over the last 25 years or so, though not recently, and thankfully not yesterday.

Things feel surreal today ... everyone around here seems a little disconnected. I imagine it will become a lot more tangible for me the first time I have to drive into the downtown area hereafter, and get to experience firsthand the traffic nightmare that central Minneapolis is going to be for at least the next couple of years.

My thoughts are with anyone who was on that bridge last night, and with their families.

[P_Funk]

But, whenever any state and some local work needs doing they can usually get some sizable grants from the Feds. However its like pulling teeth to get the states to spend the money because politicians don't want to pass the cost in taxes because they want to keep their jobs.
It's the same in all politics, "Let someone else worry about it" but not them.
Obviously there are a lot of ifs, ands, and buts to everything. God I hate that. Just suck it up people! They're taxes! The way I see it is its better that the government waste 90% of the cash in corruption to build a highway than a corporation do it at a fraction of the cost cause at least I can vote out the pr1ck in government that would want to make me pay toll. Whenever people get frisky about a tax increase that costs them a buck or two a year, or even worse saves them that little, I just want to shoot myself. Either go live in a third world nation where the government doesn't pay for anything except for your state sanctioned murder or just lobby the pr1cks to tax the rich for a fraction of what they really owe society. Even the most insane right winger has to admit that the rich get away with murder in proportion to the average person in terms of taxes.

So billions and billions flow through the middle east from tax-payer's pockets to the barracks of "allies" but a bridge somewhere in the heartland of democracy falls apart cause someone likes sitting on his ass in the state legislature... I know who's fault that is, and no waste gate it ISN'T the left wing.... or government... or the COMMIE-NAZIS!!!!!!

ITS YOU PEOPLE! *points at everyone with his middle finger*

:rotfl:
I think I had a catastrophic build up up pink-commie energy. Not enough... insane topics... need to vent polemic pressure... wheres AL when... you need her?

[Chock]

Just been watching the Channel Four UK news about this, and they had someone from the main civil engineer governing body in the UK commenting on it, stating that the bridge is fairly unusualy in its construction, although there are apparently quite a few like that in the States.
More interestingly, it had footage of the local mayor commenting on the fact that the bridge in this tragedy, had been surveyed two years previously, and the report actually stated that it was 'structurally deficient', although with the caveat that it was not in danger of collapse, but needed to be observed and that it required remedial action to guarantee its structural integrity.
As someone previously stated, this is a problem with much of the US transport system's infrastructure, and the same could be said for much of the UK, where many bridges and such date back to Victorian times. In a slightly related matter, a quick trip to most railway stations in the UK will reveal that much of the cast iron structure of a lot of UK railway stations is in dire need of replacement or repair, although in recent years, this does seem to be receiving some attention, and it has actually been sorted at the train station in my home town as well as in the nearby city of Manchester.
Obviously this event is a real tragedy for any of the victims involved in the bridge collapse in the US, but equally obviously, there is no doubt that their trust in the people responsible for the upkeep of that structure has proved to be sorely misplaced, and if I was a relative of one of those killed, I'd be very, very pissed off with those who had responsibility for the bridge's upkeep.

:D Chock

[waste gate]

:hmm: When I was very young(one to six years) I lived in Coon Rapids.

What part of town?

The closest I can say is it was the part of town my house was in. I was between the ages of one and six. At that age ones world is very small although it doesn't seem so at the time. To give some more perspective; the bridge that collapsed hadn't been built yet when we moved to Dallas, TX in 1966.

[nikimcbee]

:hmm: When I was very young(one to six years) I lived in Coon Rapids.

What part of town?

The closest I can say is it was the part of town my house was in. I was between the ages of one and six. At that age ones world is very small although it doesn't seem so at the time. To give some more perspective; the bridge that collapsed hadn't been built yet when we moved to Dallas, TX in 1966.

1966! Was that before or after the wheel was invented?:rotfl:

[Iceman]

I say put them murdering scumbags sitting on they're asses in prision on the flipping chain gangs again hacking weeds,cleaning up stuff and doing manual labor to help repair the crumbing infrastructures....under shotgun 24/7 of course....they gave up they're rights when they committed felonys...man that pisses me off about that stuff...how did my country get to where it is....we probably are waiting for China to come over here and build our stuff for us...put them and all the illegals who want to earn a modest wage or whatever to work and solve some freaking problems...if the egyptians built pyramids with slaves think of what can be done now with the actual brute force labor at our disposal.

[Reaves]

I say put them murdering scumbags sitting on they're asses in prision on the flipping chain gangs again hacking weeds,cleaning up stuff and doing manual labor to help repair the crumbing infrastructures....under shotgun 24/7 of course....they gave up they're rights when they committed felonys...man that pisses me off about that stuff...how did my country get to where it is....we probably are waiting for China to come over here and build our stuff for us...put them and all the illegals who want to earn a modest wage or whatever to work and solve some freaking problems...if the egyptians built pyramids with slaves think of what can be done now with the actual brute force labor at our disposal.

If someone is responsible for not maintaining the bridge then i'm sure an investigation should prove it. Perhaps they will be charged with negligence which should involve a manslaughter charge.

Unfortunately I doubt that will happen.

[peterloo]

If anyone found guilty in hindering the problem of the bridge for any personal gain, then the one should be prosecuted.

However, I've to emphasis is that, government shouldn't put civilians' lives at stake in order to save $$$. From the previous reports, we learnt that the bridge suffered mechanical failures years prior to the collapse. Had government initiated replacement / maintaince earier, the problem should be eliminated and unable to claim several lives. :up: Hope that further accidents will not pop up after learning a valuable, yet expensive lesson

[Rilder]

Theres this lady in town who lives next to a little bridge, and shes the type a person who exagerates everything, like if a nail breaks she has to go to hospital or some such... I bet after this shes wrapping that entire bridge in duct tape.