Minneapolis bridge collapses
 

So far three reported dead. School bus on bridge; unknown at this time if occupied. Near Univ of Minnesota.
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. CDT, 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.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNe...2?feedType=RSS
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/01/bri...pse/index.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,291790,00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20079534/

I just heard about this on CNN. This is horrible! My thoughts and praryers are with everyone involved.

I heard on Fox News that the bus had children on it and they were okay. Then again, so much information is coming and everything is confusing.

Prayers to all affected by it.

For Ohio, (southestern?) this must be really erie. Some of my relatives come from Point Pleasant (WV), where the sliver bridge (don't know if that was its official name), collapsed into the Ohio River , it connected WV with Gallipolis OH in 1969. It was a major route for east/west trucking and way for workers to the atomic power plant upriver. My great aunt, and grandma had many friends in area. Several people died in collapse. The movie "Mothman Prophicies (sp wrong, i know, spell check is acting up.) was based on folklore surrounding the collapse.

I was just thinking about this movie. It came on tv last week so I watched it. (I saw it before in the theater). I was watching it thinking how horrible it would be if I was in something like that. Here in Jacksonville, there are a lot of overpasses and ramps popping up everywhere. Several just opened a few days ago. It is one of things that you think about but never really believe that it could happen. I can't imagine what those people experienced today.

This is INSANE! I will definitely be thinking about these people and their families!!!

I currently live in the central valley. CA. just yesterday, a bridge in a freeway revamping construction project fell down. it is a route I often take. I'd become irritated about the delays caused by the project. Luckily, no one died but a delivery truck driver was badly hurt, and two cops rescued a motorist pinned in the debris, they were on national CBS morning show.

a clarification....neighbor says what fell down here, central CA, was an overpass.

I haven't heard from a ton of my friends yet but nobody's cell phone is able to make a call. My law school is a mile or so from there, it's so scary.

I hope everyone you know is OK.
any word yet what the cell problem is?

I would assume it's much like 9/11 where all the circuits are jammed from everyone trying to make calls.

I'm glad you're okay. I think this is the only time I'll be glad my friends who lived in the cities moved to AZ this week.

Thanks. I finally got to talk to one of my best friends about two hours after the collapse. He can't get ahold of any of his undergrad fraternity brothers or our law school friends. Apparently medical students from the University of Minnesota came rushing into the river to help.

That's just what I told a friend from Minneapolis attempting to call his friends there--it's just like then, the circuits got overloaded and I couldn't get through to my friends and family in NYC, either.

Southeastern Ohio would be fairly accurate, and the bridge was named The Silver Bridge.

I wonder if your relatives might have known my great aunt and uncle who was the city auditor of Gallipolis at that time.

I remember the incident because I was on the air on a Sunday afternoon at a commercial radio station in Athens, Ohio -- probably 50 miles from Gallipolis. I received a call from the local Ohio State Highway Patrol (Athens) post that the bridge had fallen. Having no way to check myself, I called the Columbus bureau of the Associated Press and the word got out from there. We were the first media outlet to have the story. Of course our news director left for the site immediately. I also called a photographer friend at the Ohio University TV station where I also worked at the time and he shot some of the first footage of the scene. I think the year would have been 1967, though because I was no longer with the station in 1969.

The bridge spanned the Ohio River between Kanauga, Ohio (close to Gallipolis) and Point Pleasant, West Virginia. This event also happened in the late afternoon, and over 40 people were killed.

Here is a link to a story on that disaster.

http://www.wvculture.org/HiStory/dis...rbridge03.html

As of 9:00 PM Denver time today, the death toll in Minneapolis stands at seven and authorities expect it to rise.

Fortunately, our neice in the Twin Cities is OK.

I've also driven across the 35W bridge in the past.

Going to school in Jacksonville, I thought the same thing. In a city surrounded by bridges and a river, I often think about it. Call me crazy, but I acutally avoid going on a specific bridge in the city (Matthews) because it looks exactly like the old Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

I have been born and raised and Tampa Bay and have grown up hearing the horror stories from my family about the day in 1980 with the Sunshine Skyway got hit by a tanker and over 30 people died!

My prayers go to out to all effected by the bridge collapse !!!

From what I just heard on CNN, this may collapse MAY BE very closely related to the The Mianus Bridge Collapse:
http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/1984/har8403.htm

Seems as if there was a report in one of the local papers several years ago talking about the possibility of some connectors failing.

Sheesh...very scary. I can't believe it! I used that bridge about every single day, back in the day. I just sent an e-mail out to the two people I still keep in close touch with who still live there. And I'm starting to hear welfare reports about others I know more indirectly. But everyone is so inter-related in the Upper Midwest that I'm sure I'll hear about so-and-so who knows or is related to so-and-so had a near miss, etc. Hopefully nothing worse than that.

I hate Matthews. I am just glad that I rarely used that bridge. It is so old and even with all the repairs that is going on, the bridge makes me nervous.

I truly feel for all those directly affected. I know that the kids on the school bus are physically ok, I hope they aren't too traumatized by this. I have a bridge phobia already and this just reinforces it.. eek. So scary.

I've sent a text to a good friend of mine that lives in Minneapolis, she had an interview yesterday afternoon so I imagine she was out & about when this happened, I just don't know if she was on that bridge. I haven't heard back from her yet, but I don't have any other way to get in touch with her at the moment.

My thoughts & prayers are with the injured & families of lost loved ones.

The Matthews is a little scary with that open grate instead of a concrete road, but since I had to cross it every day for 7 years (went to school downtown and lived in Arlington) I kind of got used to it. The bridge that really wigged me out is the Main Street bridge, becasue it seemed like every time the center was lifted when it was foggy, people would just drive right off it.

I wonder if my family drove over that bridge in 1993 when we crossed the Mississippi from Wisconsin to Minnesota.

No new casualties as of now, thank goodness.

It is a miracle that all 60 kids on that school bus made it out alive.

The Mississippi does not run between Wisconsin and Minnesota that far north, the St. Croix does. I-35 also does not go in Wisconsin.

Text messaging is incredibly incredibly slow. I am a few area codes away from the cities for the summer but because I have a 612 number I still am having a hard time making/receiving calls.

I had a feeling they would be, so instead of trying to call her every few minutes I'm just going to wait until she gets the text or I see her online. She hasn't been online since, which is unusual for her, so I'm just anxious to find out if she is OK.

If you want to tell me in a PM where she lives or works or goes to school (if you know) I can tell you if it was likely she took that bridge.

Even though they are very new, and they took forever to build them, this makes me freak out even more going over that expressway bridge in Ohio. The one where a few people died while building it? I think it's 280. It goes to the Ohio Turnpike. It is seriously so high up and if something like this were to happen, most likely everyone would die.

She just replied to my text! Thanks for the offer though, she said that she avoids the construction when headed south(?) although she had used it earlier in the day on her way to her interview. It is just such a relief to finally hear from her! :D

My sister is up in MN this summer but thankfully she was no where near the river or this bridge.

I hope they've found everyone :(

I haven't been able to get in touch with a friend of mine who lives there. I hope it is just because the lines are tied up. He never turns off his cell...

correcting myself. silver bridge, over ohio river, collapsed in 1967, should have googled it. it was before my time. yesterday's collapse prompted phone calls between my mom and friends still living back there (ohio). my older brother, although just a kid then, remembers my mom staying up all night when the silver bridge went down, calling people in her hometown trying to find out how everyone was. the father of one of her school friends died and a friend of hers was on bridge, and survived.

with the drivers going in today in minneapolis, prayers again for that city.

I remember hearing about that bridge collapse. They had a 25year rememberance thing when I was in college. They showed all of the old news reports.

I cannot imagine what it is like to be looking for a family member. I don't know what would be worse- knowing that they were gone, or not knowing either way.

This is so scary...

My sister lives in Minneapolis- she contacted us by email right away to let us know her and her boyfriend were ok. No one could get through when trying to call her due to the phone lines being jammed. She doesn't travel that highway daily for work- but travels it at other times to get around town. Her boyfriend on the other hand drives that way home from work everyday- he decided to stop and get a drink after work last night- so we will never know if he would have been on the bridge when it collapsed...and I am happy to never have to know!

*Thinking of those who have lost someone in this tragedy. May God be with them at this difficult time.*

Trafficland (a web traffic camera site) has a live camera aimed right at the bridge-I have to wonder it anyone was viewing it last night:
http://www.trafficland.com/#start

If you're interested, I posted a link to some Silver Bridge information earlier in this thread. (on page 1)

ETA that two things occurred to me. Earlier, I said that the Silver Bridge collapse was on Sunday. I thought that because I was working at the radio station mostly on weekends at that point. The disaster actually was Friday, December 15. That would make sense, because I volunteered to work at the station over Christmas Break that year so another staff member could go home and see his family. The collapse happened just after 5:00 PM, so everyone else had gone home for the day.

Second, it struck me that the 35W bridge was completed and opened to traffic in 1967 -- the same year as the Silver Bridge collapse.

KARE-11, a local TV Station, has several cameras aimed there with better vantage points if you know where to click.

http://www.kare11.com/travel/traffic/

Click on the tab that says "Cameras" and then anywhere on 35 between 94 and 36.

Minn. Bridge Problems Uncovered in 1990
 

Minnesota officials were warned as early as 1990 that the bridge that collapsed into the Mississippi River was "structurally deficient," yet they relied on patchwork repairs and stepped-up inspections that unraveled amid a thunderous plunge of concrete and automobiles.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6005140/

I just found the CNN video showing the collapse:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/...f=mpvideosview