Check your National News
Terrible situation.
Our heart goes out to those folks.
Cliff
Golly Cliff...We've been sitting here most of the evening and not heard anything about this. But then it might have been since I've been trying to get a connection.
Are you sure you're not plugged into a higher source for your news? :o
Bob
FYI
It was the I-35W Bridge
OK, All you Minnesota guys check in...
Cliff
Looks awful.
When I was with Craig (gumpy) and his clan over the weekend in Wyoming, they weren't supposed to head back until today.
Brian B.
We're up to speed on it now...it's a real tragedy. Happy to hear that Gumpy and family were far away from it. What's happening to our national infrastructure?
Bob
Quote from: FloridaCliff on August 01, 2007, 04:53:39 PM
It was the West bound bridge of I-35
Actually, it appears it was the whole bridge in both directions, of I-35W. (The W is part of the number -- the bridge runs north/south.)
Most of the major news sites now have it on the home page, with at least one photo.
I believe the intact bridge next to it is the 10th street bridge.
-Sean
http://OurOdyssey.BlogSpot.com
Full coverage on Fox news cable
Richard
That's horrible. I cannot imagine what it would be like to have lost any loved ones. Our heart goes out to the families.
Becky and Paul
Traffic was apparently bumper to bumper at rush hour. May be dozens of vehicles at the bottom of the Mississippi. Sounds worse than the last earthquake I was in in California several years ago.
Richard
Whow ... that doesn't look good.
Ron
Hey guys, my home town! So far everyone we can think of who might have been going over the bridge this evening is safe. What was worse than just rush hour traffic was the Twins were playing ball tonight as well. So, that meant both south and north bound lanes were packed. not good ... please say a few extra prayers for all the people impacted by this tragedy. Thank you
Hey Brian,
Thanks for checking in.
We hope to hear soon from the rest of our Minnesota gang.
Glad to hear you and yours are OK.
Cliff
Anyone heard from Brian Elfert yet? Anyone have his phone and can call and make sure he is okay?
Hi Brian,
Glad your home safe also...
What a horrific scene on the news. It looks like a earthquake aftermath.
I hope not too many lives were lost!
Nick-
We're home. All ok. The bridge was not on our route.
We left WY early and got home today. We turned on the radio about 30 minutes after the bridge fell, and listened to the coverage for the last 100 miles or so. This was not on our route, so we were no where close to it. Have been watching the news coverage. It's incredible. There will be many dead in the days to come. So far, they're saying 7 dead, but they're suggesting there's at least 20 or more still in their cars in the water. The death toll will climb over the next few days.
I'll make another post regarding the trip. Mostly good news, but some bad, too.
craig
Craig, glad you and your family are safe.
we'll look forward to your report of the fun of traveling in a bus.
we'll also pray for those that happened to be on the bridge. what a terrible experience to live thru, but thank goodness they did. God help those that didn't.
Quote from: Brian Diehl on August 01, 2007, 07:33:53 PM
Anyone heard from Brian Elfert yet? Anyone have his phone and can call and make sure he is okay?
I'm fine. I normally take the I35W bridge to/from work, but I have rarely taken that route recently due to road repairs on both the bridge and the three miles north of the bridge. (The initial thoughts are the deck repairs on the bridge did not cause the collapse, but we won't know for days or weeks.)
I work at the Star Tribune newspaper probably less than 1 mile from the bridge and we had an outage of our remote access for reporters and photographers that I was repairing this evening. This had a high priority since the biggest local story in a number of years had just broken.
I think they have gone way overboard on road closures for I35W. They have closed some five or six miles north of the bridge.
Commuting is going to suck for probably years for me as they don't build a bridge like this overnight. It will be ten times worse when it snows over the winter.
Belfert, Brian D, and Gumpy glad to hear y'all are ok! I just got in from being gone to Memphis all day, and was reading the first I'd heard about this here! I was going to call and check on Belfert when I saw where he'd checked in! God bless y'all and everyone else up there! Now I wonder about Paul? If we haven't heard from him tomorrow I'll call and check! Although his stomp'n groinds are SW of the cities he could 've still been comuting!
BK
Glad our members are ok, heart and prayers go out to those affected by a travesty that we won't know the full extent of for a while.
I've left a message for Paul ... hoping he calls back soon ...
Not only this bridge.... bad news for us travelers, but the Fox News commentators this morning are reporting that they have been told 80,000 bridges (defined as any span of more than 20 feet) in the U.S. are rated as "structurally deficient" to the same degree as this collapsed one. This may not necessarily mean they will imminently collapse, but that there are structural problems of some kind. My wife used to work for a government agency in south Florida that has four bridges in its jurisdiction, so is somewhat familiar with the system. The state sends engineers to inspect all bridges and they are rated (percentage-wise) as to their structural sufficiency. Engineers are typically conservative on such matters, so it is appalling to see this Minnesota disaster. Makes you wonder.
BTW, for years my wife has had a fear of bridges (officially called gephyrophobia) and the longer/higher the bridge, the higher her anxiety level. Now I won't be laughing at her.
Kirby
It is truly a tragedy and one of my worst nightmares. I cringe every time I must cross something like the Delaware Memorial. Whatever vehicle you are in needs to be equipped with a windshear warning system! I am sorry for the dead, and all the survivors who will never be the same.
Tom
needs to be equipped with a windshear warning system
What is this? Is for winter ice only? I thought that was for aircraft? Please go into more detail.
Mr. Hobie,
Just my small attempt at humor. A wind shear warning system is for an aircraft. It will let you know when strong windshear occurs. The joke was that when you're that high up on a bridge, especially the Delaware Memorial, your vehicle is getting blown around something awful, so this piece of aircraft equipment would be useful, but of course noy practical.
Tom
Bridges are constantly called out as the weak link in our transportation system. There seem to be news items at least once a year talking about the poor health of lots of bridges.
But, I believe a lot of these are smaller bridges on two lane highways and such. The Northeast also has a lot of bad bridges as they built their highways much earlier. Minnesota actually had been fairly highly rated for bridges compared to other states even though we still have a number of bridges that are rated deficeint.
The USA as a whole simply does not have enough money to maintain our roads properly as construction costs skyrocket. Everyone wants money spent on congestion and don't care as much about maintenance since it doesn't help them get to home/work faster and easier. There simply is not enough money to maintain all the roads we do have and still build more.
I suspect more money will now go into repairs of existing bridges which will mean tax increases or less construction to relieve congestion.
Joke now understood. Some of us are a little slow!
On a serious note, the talk of increasing our taxes to repair or better inspect bridges will probably happen. I am not happy as look at much we pay for gas tax now and look at how it is being spent. Not on new interstates. They have been in for years. And paid for with much less tax revenue to boot. It sure appears this gas taxes just go into the general fund to be spent on, "other than transportation" or carpool lanes. Don't get me started on the social problems!
Quote from: belfert on August 02, 2007, 09:47:09 AM
Bridges are constantly called out as the weak link in our transportation system. There seem to be news items at least once a year talking about the poor health of lots of bridges.
But, I believe a lot of these are smaller bridges on two lane highways and such. The Northeast also has a lot of bad bridges as they built their highways much earlier. Minnesota actually had been fairly highly rated for bridges compared to other states even though we still have a number of bridges that are rated deficeint.
The USA as a whole simply does not have enough money to maintain our roads properly as construction costs skyrocket. Everyone wants money spent on congestion and don't care as much about maintenance since it doesn't help them get to home/work faster and easier. There simply is not enough money to maintain all the roads we do have and still build more.
I suspect more money will now go into repairs of existing bridges which will mean tax increases or less construction to relieve congestion.
Must disagree; there is plenty of money to build and maintain the US interstructure, roads, bridges, water systems, etc. The problem is politicians don't see any votes in these issues. So money that should be spent on building and maintenance goes to beatification projects and art for the masses and an endless list of projects they hope will get them re-elected. Our junior senator got a bundle of Federal tax dollars for a Art Park in Seattle, why Federal money is being spent on city art projects is beyond me. Of course none of these projects will be scraped so the money can be spent on interstructure, new taxes will have to be levied.
It is all about priorities, and some of our duly elected politicians pork barrel the stuff like crazy. I agree there are a lot of our dollars being waisted on frivolous things.
Glad I don't waste any of our money, cause I have a Bus Conversion! ;D
Paul
...and yet we can find a trillion dollars for a stupid, ill conceived war that will accomplish nothing.
Len
Guy's,
We all can only hope and push for a better discussion on our infrastructure after this disaster.
Unfortunately this is sometimes what it takes to get people in general to say "Whats going on here".
Paul wrote: Glad I don't waste any of our money, cause I have a Bus Conversion!
Paul, Thanks for the BIG ;D
Cliff
Harry Reid the sentor from Nev wants to build another bridge across the Colo river between Bullhead and Laughlin for 8 to 12 million across property he owns has already spent millions for a 4 lane highway from Henderson NV to Searchlite NV where he has a home and now people have lost their life on a unsafe bridge and proably have been asking for funds over the years
The bridge that collapsed was apparently scheduled for either replacement or redecking around 2020. A redecking would probably not have done anything to prevent structural collapse.
The state has three other bridges of the same design and they have hired a firm to inspect them too. This particular design has no redundancy if one part of the bridge fails. A new bridge wouldn't be approved today without redundancy.
I hope the urgency of this matter will allow environmental and visual designs to be fast tracked. I certainly wouldn't want the engineering of the replacement to be rushed.