Minneapolis I-35W Bridge Collapse

If you all haven't heard, just turn on the news. :(
This is a very sad sight.

I just seen it online.. at least one school bus involved.

What freaks me out is.... how many vehicles and people are IN the water under that bridge?

Now the death count is up to 6. :(

It's about 2 miles south of where I am right now. I was just in shock, it was rush hour and I know some of my co-workers take that way home. I won't know until tomorrow if everyone is all right. WCCO news has a constantly running video feed on their website at http://wcco.com/ I've been glued to it all night. It's just horrible.

Mark

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I just seen it online.. at least one school bus involved.

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The school bus had 60 kids from a day camp coming home from a field trip. They were able to get them all out safely but a little banged up.

Best wishes to the victims and their families .. :worry:

How does a bridge like that just randomly collapse?

http://wcco.com/slideshows/local_sli.../view?slide=21

Look at the description of that picture...Well no :cens0r::cens0r::cens0r::cens0r: sherlock...where the cars gonna go when there is no bridge?

And drowning, that is my only fear and it terrifies me... :(

They think it could be Terroristic activity. atleast there arn't more casualtys. But thats 6 to many.:(

Ya, could be, now that I think about it, I got sun burnt on my shoulders the other day, think I should get homeland security involved... :rolleyes:

that's horrible. that's like 2 hours north of me... far away enough that i'm not worried about loved ones but close enough to REALLY make you stop and think... i can't imagine what is going on in those people's heads!

Yeah my sister was going to use that bridge tonight but decided to take a different way....thank god. I haven't lost someone in this tragedy so far....Mark let me know if you find out anything else. :(


Mike

They were repairing it before it collapsed. That's why I don't like bridges,tunnels or anything else like that.You can't trust anything man made.

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They think it could be Terroristic activity. atleast there arn't more casualtys. But thats 6 to many.:(

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I've been watching the news all night and that was NEVER mentioned and it sounds like an alarmist idea to me. I think it's more likely that the construction they've been doing on it for the past 2 months might have more to do with it.

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Originally Posted by sw204me

Ya, could be, now that I think about it, I got sun burnt on my shoulders the other day, think I should get homeland security involved... :rolleyes:

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Naa, don't waste your time. I tried that and all they did was tell me that since the sun burn was *not* in "sensitive areas" there was nothing they could do. They did however, ask me for my name, address, phone #, email address, mother's maiden name, father's place of birth and how sensative my ears were to high pitch noises. :P

Seriously though, IF (and that's a big *if*) it was terrorist related, then I'd be willing to bet it was a failed attempt. We've seen how good a job terrorists can do when they want to destroy something and kill a lot of people. ;)

ok, if we can't blame terrorist, then I blame global warming. cause its gotta be one or the other.

Or the third option that seems to go around... Blame Bush.

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Originally Posted by GirDance

Or the third option that seems to go around... Blame Bush.

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can't blame anybody for blaming bush :2cent:

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Originally Posted by sw204me

ok, if we can't blame terrorist, then I blame global warming. cause its gotta be one or the other.

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Well, heck, we're back to square one. :(
We can't blame Bush because if we do, he'll hear about it and we'll end up getting "suicide-ed" by the guys in dark glasses who monitor us... I mean, who DON'T monitor us. We can't blame global warming because the governemt (Bush) says it's not true and that global warming is just something that Al Gore came up with one night while he was drunk and the humidity was real high. :P

Can I make a request please? I know a lot of the posters here are young people, and this is an exciting story with lots of drama and speculation especially if you're watching any of the national news networks like fox or cnn that tend to overdramatize situations like this. And it's fun and cool to talk smack about this being a problem of terrorism or global warming or president bush or whatever...

But... this is a very real human tragedy with significant loss of life and many people injured. Emotionally as well as physically... The full scope of which will not be known until the divers get in the water tomorrow to start recovering bodies from all the submerged cars and trucks.

Please, don't make light of this tragedy. I know that a little false bravado in a scary situation can help relieve some of the fear , but you wouldn't want to go overboard and sound like you're making a mockery of it. That would just be cruel.

As I said earlier, I work just two miles north of the bridge. The collapse happened in rush hour traffic. Any of my co-workers that get off of work between 5:30-6:00 (which is quite a few) and that live in the southern suburbs, would be driving over that bridge to get home at about the same time it collapsed. I won't know until tomorrow whether or not anyone I know has been killed or injured in this tragedy, but I've been praying that everyone I know is OK....

Now, I don't mean to sound like some kind of old geezer and point fingers at anyone in a scolding manner. After all, several decades ago I was once young too. But I would ask you to please think before you press the enter key... Do you really want to be remembered as the person who made a wisecrack about a tragedy such as this???

Mark

:) I kind of figured someone was going to bring this up as I, myself have thought about it. I, of course, can not speak for others, however, myself, I am of the belief that it is *good* to "take a breather" from chaos. Does that mean that we should go about cracking endless amounts of jokes about this, or 9-11... or any tragady for that matter, no, but to take a break from the "oh my god!!!!!" of it is... healthy.
I'm not exactly sure what you refer to as "young people" but I for one, am not so "young". I don't think that "false bravado in a scary situation can help relieve some of the fear" is quite accurate. We are not putting on a front or a face, we are simply opening a window to let some sunshine in on a very disturbing, horrific day. I agree, going overboard would be in poor taste, however I don't think that 5 posts out of...2 pages worth is "overboard". I completely understand the sensitive nature of the issue as well as people's feelings toward it and that our "sunshine", while refreshing to one may be obtrusive and blinding to another and for that, I apologize.

However, let us not assume that no one else knows, is or has been deeping and personally effected by tragady, that would be a bit of an oversight.
My brother, who fought in the first Gulf war saw horrors that he'll never be able to get out of his head... or dreams and his family did not even know he was on the front lines in Bazarah (sp?) with a machine gun until *after* he returned home... at least he did, his buddy in the trench with him didn't and my brother had to wash his friend's blood and brains off his face. While no, that did not happen to me, it is something that I will never forget... the look on my brother's face when telling us about it and how he puked straight away after telling it.

So, if I (can only speak for myself) feel that I need to take a breather from tragady and lighten the air with a joke or two, please forgive me, it is good for the mind as well as the heart from time to time.

Mark,

I understand your feelings regarding the situation; when 9-11 hit a lot of people I go to school with lost fathers, uncles, friends and its a horrible thing to witness. I hope only the best for your co-workers and the families of those touched by this tragedy.

Shadow pretty much nailed it. People die everyday, it happens, its life. We know of this even cause it was big. A bridge completely crashing killing 6 people total is a horrible thing, and I am not making "wisecracks" at the fact that it happen, but why it happen. People die every day, yet I don't suppose you feel sorry for those people, or those families about it do you? You only know of this even cause it was all over the news, which is usually full of nothing but sad crap ne ways. But if you look at every tragic event, or even every persons death and are just horrified by it or are depressed, then your gonna be one sad person for the rest of your life.

Now for this situation, you personally its A LOT different. You live 2 miles from it, you had friends that use that bridge, so from your point of view, this could be the loss of a friend, which lets pray it's not. This hits you harder then all over us cause its in your life, but to us, its just another event that happens.

You hardly hear any jokes about 9/11, but how many jokes have you heard about Katrina, or the Tsunami that wiped out that entire island? Cause me personally, have heard quite a few, mainly probably due to the people I hang out with. I am a humor kinda guy, I try to get people to laugh, smile, whatever, even in the :cens0r::cens0r::cens0r::cens0r:test times. I nearly died in a motorcycle wreck and got to spend 5 hrs in the E.R. My mom was a total wreck, nice pun there eh?, and was in tears most of the day, but what you think I was doing when I was being put on the stretcher, or on the way to the E.R., my dumbass was cracking jokes about what happen and what could of happen, and even in all that, I got a few smiles out of my mom.

Humor in a crappy situation can come off as "cruel" and "insensitive" but for some people, its literally they only way they can get through times that other wise would completely over come them. I don't mean to offend anyone, and I am sorry if I did.

But I still think it's Planet X's fault. (if you don't know what planet X is, look it up, according to scientist, it will end the world in 2012)

i'm still waiting to hear why it happened. when i heard the bridge was under construction the last few months, my first thought was that they left something undone... or something... don't know jack about bridges.... but then i heard that they were just doing basic maintenance or something that wouldn't have made much of an impact. so if they didn't do anything that would affect the stability of the bridge.... i dunno. but they need to figure it out ASAP so it doesn't happen again!!!

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Originally Posted by python.princess

i'm still waiting to hear why it happened.

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...then you will be waiting awhile. Most studies into bridge failures take years.

The fact is that things like this do not happen everyday. It is a rare event that will be learned from and studied to prevent the same thing from happening in the future.

I still see the media selling the "FEAR" though.

Locally, every newspaper has had some front page comments like "the condition of Louisiana bridges and when will they collapse" ever since this happened. I live in south east Louisiana yet all the media has to do is play on the fear of bridge collapse.....damn....it is not like they don't constantly whore out the levee failure to bring fear to people...I guess we need another issue now.

Its what my news station told me? So i figured I would throw it out. Sorry for commenting.

well it seems to be that this bridge as been on the structuraly deficiant list since the early 90's with some other 1000 bridges in minnisota alone the total rises to like 16000 for the entire united states. So how many more collapses are out there waiting to happen.I frimly believe its time to bring every dollar we are spending in forgein aid back into this country to fix things and establish basic health care for all american citiziens. Before we have more disasters in this country.

Well, thankfully it sounds like all of my co-workers are accounted for. It's amazing more people weren't hurt. The construction that was going on was just work on the concrete and not the infrastructre of the bridge, so probably not as likely that was the cause. Fortunatly the construction had traffic so snarled up that a lot of people were already taking alternate routes home. Who knows? Maybe the construction actually saved some lives?

That's great news, Mark! Very glad to hear it.

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Originally Posted by McAdry

well it seems to be that this bridge as been on the structuraly deficiant list since the early 90's with some other 1000 bridges in minnisota alone the total rises to like 16000 for the entire united states. So how many more collapses are out there waiting to happen.I frimly believe its time to bring every dollar we are spending in forgein aid back into this country to fix things and establish basic health care for all american citiziens. Before we have more disasters in this country.

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:8: :8: :8:

Dream world's, they are such a nice thing to have.

EXCELLENT news Mark!!!!

I have to agree with the comment about the media's "fear" tactics... if that's what ya want to call it. Heck, tonight on CNN they are going to air "The Road to Ruin", a look at America's bridges etc. "are we safe?" :rolleyes: We wonder why society is so paranoid and has so many phobias about EVERYTHING...hmmmmm, let's think about that for a moment.
*glances over at the media in general* :D