The end of rush hour, 6:10 pm, bumper to bumper traffic heading to the baseball game or home from work.
I35W is a major artery crossing the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis.
Collapsed.
Witness reports say it bounced up and down (one said it felt similar to bad alignment) or heaved or waved then dropped out of sight. Seven deaths confirmed, many injuries.
Roughly 50 cars in the wreckage and in the water surrounding the bridge were searched. Recovery efforts will start for any that lie underneath.
The bridge deck was undergoing maintenance, but the failure was structural.
Twenty people, including one construction worker, missing.
Everyday heroes helped the injured from their vehicles and got 60 kids out of a bus.
http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1338294.html
http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_213191448.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6927113.stm
- ob a major cycling route lies underneath and follows the shoreline
8 comments:
Luckily due to bridge deck work, there were only two lanes of traffic instead of eight.
I was at 7 Corners when this happened. What a mess -- the traffic was a disaster already and this. Throughout the night we watched as emergency vehicles crawled through the snarled streets.
Minneapolitans put away their usual car-induced blinders and were quite orderly and the fire trucks, ambulances, trucks with boats, dive teams, collapsed structure workers (apparently Dakota county has some) all got through fairly quickly. The cops directing traffic were the unsung heroes of the night.
So, Gov. Paulenty, how's that no new taxes workin' for ya?
Glad to hear you're safe, OB. I drove across the bridge Sunday and have relatives who were on it within hours of the collapse. Terrible, terrible stuff.
I've got relatives out there. More and more bridges will be falling down like this due to the lack of maintenance.
jeanne!!!!!!! i'm glad you're safe, and i miss you buckets. haven't heard from you all summer....how are things going? you should probably just send me an email ;)
Good to know you're OK, Jeanne. I spent last night and much of today waiting for news of my niece and her husband. They live downtown and commute in that area regularly. It was great to get an e-mail from her a couple of hours ago.
Yam, CP, Tim -- glad to hear relatives are fine. My heart breaks for those who are still waiting to hear from loved ones.
Rhea -- hope everyone is OK!
Jen -- I'll try to get an email off, but it might not be right away!
yes
life sucks enough without having something like this happen
my heart goes out to all who were directly effected by this
lives have been changed
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