OMFG............breaking news

[Jimx29]

Just a little while ago during the peak of rush hour in downtown Minneapolis, bumper to bumper traffic on 35W and the bridge collapses 50+ feet into the Mississippi river.....
:(

50-70 vehicles involved, most in the river....

There's live coverage here on the local stations

http://www.kare11.com/
http://kstp.com/
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/myfox/

:(

[Freak Out]

I just heard it.... :cry: :cry:

[Kiwon]

Wow! An unbelievable nightmare.

[HarveyWallbangers]

http://www.startribune.com/scripts/setpass.php?goto=http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1338294.html

A woman driving on the bridge at the time said she just made it to the other side as the bridge collapsed. She had to gun it. She said she saw workers with a jackhammer on the bridge at the time. It's an old bridge. I think it was just after rush hour. Reports are saying 20-30 cars were on the bridge. In a normal rush hour, you'd see more cars than that. Could be wrong, but those are the numbers they are reporting on the Star Tribune website.

[HarveyWallbangers]

Just realized the Twins are playing at home tonight, so I'd imagine there's many more than 20-30 cars on that bridge. These early reports I've been reading have to be off.

[Joemailman]

Harv,

CNN just reported that there were 50-100 cars on the bridge, and that 50 were in the river. If that's true, there are going to be a lot more deaths.

[BallHawk]

6 reported dead, as of now. Obviously, that death toll will rise. Let's hope it's not too steep of an increase.

But, man, what a tragedy. It sounds like the construction played a roll in the collapse. Can't be too sure, though.

[GBRulz]

That is so sad what happened. They said the bridge was built in 1967 and was inspected in 2005 & 2006 and said there were very minor repairs that needed to be done on it, but as far as being replaced, it would be structurally sound through at least 2020.

You wonder if the heat had something to do with the concrete buckling or something? I know a couple years ago when it got really hot here, parts of I-43 split and cracked, leaving big holes.

[oregonpackfan]

This hits home to me. My family in Rice Lake used that bridge on 35W over the Mississippi River countless times on our way to and from the Twin Cities Airport.

Those unfortunate souls(including a school bus full of kids) just happened to be traveling at the wrong time when the collapse occured.

[MJZiggy]

At least it's reported that the kids are safe...But WOW!! Just so tragic...

[Joemailman]

Photos

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/01/bridge.collapse/index.html#cnnSTCPhoto

[superfan]

Obviously horrible for anyone involved with this disaster.

The longer term ramifications cannot be understated, either. This is one of the major arteries for the metropolitan area.

They say anywhere from 100,000 to 200,000 vehicles cross that bridge daily. There are a lot of individuals going to bed tonight simply thankful to be alive.

[HarveyWallbangers]

That is so sad what happened. They said the bridge was built in 1967 and was inspected in 2005 & 2006 and said there were very minor repairs that needed to be done on it, but as far as being replaced, it would be structurally sound through at least 2020.

You wonder if the heat had something to do with the concrete buckling or something? I know a couple years ago when it got really hot here, parts of I-43 split and cracked, leaving big holes.

Could be. I know the construction workers are taking some heat right now. My Dad, who is in the civil engineering field, said he doubts that would have been the primary reason for the collapse. Maybe it was the heat. He wonders if a barge had hit the bridge recently. Who knows. I guess it depends on just how much construction was going on.

[Joemailman]

One of the CNN reporters were saying that there is a dam near the area. He said in recent years there have been a number of bridge collapses near dams because the moving water creates erosion around the bridge pilings. Does the water move fast there due to a dam?

[HarveyWallbangers]

One of the CNN reporters were saying that there is a dam near the area. He said in recent years there have been a number of bridge collapses near dams because the moving water creates erosion around the bridge pilings. Does the water move fast there due to a dam?

I don't know how fast by the damn, but as you can imagine the Mississippi River moves pretty fast.

[Merlin]

The bridge was inspected in 2006 and nothing was found. The deck needed to be replaced in 2020 according to the reports. I drive that bridge about once a week, today wasn't one of them.

Part of the problem in the Twin Cities is that they have effectively chocked the traffic with all of the construction. Only I-94 is not going through some kind of major project. I-494, I-694 & I-35 are all going through major projects.

My first thought about what caused this has a lot to do with MinDot not planning construction better. Because they have chocked off every way in/out and around the the area, people have no alternate routes to really travel. This was one of those alternate routes until the cut it off this spring.

So they took 8 lanes of congestion, narrowed it into 4 and then put all four lanes on the inside lanes of the bridge. My speculation here is that the bridge was never designed to be 4 lanes with all of the load being carried in the center of the bridge. There was no way to counter balance the load on the inside to the outside because those lanes were closed and they were stripping layers of concrete off making the outside lanes lighter. Over the course of a few months I am sure the weakened the bridge.

My condolences go out to all that were affected by this tragedy. I only hope my speculation is wrong because if what I think is right, and no one in the planning stages caught it before the tragedy, you have to start wondering about all construction projects. Why? Because I am not the smartest kid on the short bus!

[Cheesehead Craig]

The local ABC affiliate brought out the 2006 inspection from MNDOT and read off some of it to a guy who has been a struct eng for over 25 yrs. One line that there was fatigue cracking on the span girders and the diaphrams that connect them. The guy immediately said that this could be a significant factor in the collapse.

The construction work that was going on was mostly surface related, they were not working on the support structure from what has been released. So I don't believe that that work helped cause what happened.

The governor came out and said that per the MNDOT report last year, the bridge was good until 2020. That's all they can comment on for now. I believe that this report is going to be highly scrutinized and picked apart; with it ultimately being found that the inspection was faulty and that the issues with the bridge were downplayed.

As others have said, this is a MAJOR highway section and bears a lot of the rush hour traffic. This is going to take 2-3 minimum to clean up and repair. Just figuring out where to send the traffic from this road is going to be a major undertaking.

I only know one person who was on the bridge, it was one of the execs here at work and he was fine. Just a horrific tragedy.

[GBRulz]

They say anywhere from 100,000 to 200,000 vehicles cross that bridge daily. There are a lot of individuals going to bed tonight simply thankful to be alive.

I agree. In fact, the first thing I did was think of friends who live in that area and thankfully, nobody was involved in this. My friend tried calling her brother on his cell after this happened and it took like 2 hours before she could even get through. Apparently, cell service was down for a bit.

[packinpatland]

When something like this happens, it defies simple logic.
There just isn't anything that can be said, it's just so sad.

[the_idle_threat]

WOW.

Very sad.

Are all the Twin Cities rats accounted for???

[BallHawk]

One of the CNN reporters were saying that there is a dam near the area. He said in recent years there have been a number of bridge collapses near dams because the moving water creates erosion around the bridge pilings. Does the water move fast there due to a dam?

I don't think that that could be the cause. They were saying on the news that the bridge is unique because the majority of the bridges weight is supported by pillars that are on land, not in the water.

I could be mistaken, though.

[BallHawk]

WOW.

Very sad.

Are all the Twin Cities rats accounted for???

I believe so. Rastak, Harv, and Superfan are all accounted for.

[Cheesehead Craig]

WOW.

Very sad.

Are all the Twin Cities rats accounted for???

I believe so. Rastak, Harv, and Superfan are all accounted for.
Twin Cities boy here too!

[BallHawk]

WOW.

Very sad.

Are all the Twin Cities rats accounted for???

I believe so. Rastak, Harv, and Superfan are all accounted for.
Twin Cities boy here too!

I thought you were in WI. Sorry about that.

Glad all of you are safe.

[HarveyWallbangers]

Another theory. Apparently, this structure is on wheels or a rail kind of thing and it has a couple of feet of give in it. Perhaps it was poorly designed--especially for stressful situations (traffic, heat, fast flowing water, maybe something ran into it). It's likely a combination of things.

[MadtownPacker]

Not that it makes it any better but at least it wasnt a terrorist attack.

Glad all you guys are OK. My condolences goes out to those that lost their lives and their families.

[Cheesehead Craig]

WOW.

Very sad.

Are all the Twin Cities rats accounted for???

I believe so. Rastak, Harv, and Superfan are all accounted for.
Twin Cities boy here too!

I thought you were in WI. Sorry about that.

Glad all of you are safe.
No sweat. I'm just not as famous as the other MN Rats.

I'm happy they are all good too.

Frankly, if you look at what happened, I'm amazed that there weren't more immediate casualties.

[oregonpackfan]

The bridge collapse has caused a number of cities to evaluate their bridges.

Here in Portland, OR there are a large number of bridges as the Willamette River divides the city in half plus Portland has two major bridges going over the Columbia River to the north.

One engineering consultant here pointed out that our bridges last longer than the ones in the upper midwest as Portland does not salt their roads or bridges. Salt has a very corrosive effect on concrete and steel. For what it is worth, his theory was the cumulative effect of winter salting on the Minnesota bridge may have weakened it before its expected lifespan.

[Freak Out]

Not sure if anyone is still following this or not but found this site about the construction that was going on at the time.

http://taxa.epi.umn.edu/bridge/