Are Minneapolis members OK?

[gwyneth]

Let's hope and pray that our members who live in Minneapolis and their families and friends were not on the 35W bridge tonight when it collapsed.

One of my cousins is a surgeon there and we haven't been able to discover yet whether he is ok; otherwise he'll be helping (all ambulances and medical personnel there have been called in).

[Ed62]

I thought I heard something about a bridge or overpass collapsing. Were there people killed? Hopefully it will be nothing more than minor injuries, if any.

Ed

[Uncle Cracker]

Conflicting reports so far. Some say 6 killed, some say 7. Takes me back to the Sunshine Skyway collapse in Tampa Bay a few years back. Sad business. Thank God that school bus full of kids made it across.

[gwyneth]

Conflicting reports so far. Some say 6 killed, some say 7. Takes me back to the Sunshine Skyway collapse in Tampa Bay a few years back. Sad business. Thank God that school bus full of kids made it across.

I lived in Treasure Island then.

Amazingly, the Red Cross chapter director of EMS was on the bridge a car or two from the bus. He helped the kids out and lead them to the Red Cross building, a block or so away. An emergency nurse training class was in progress, so setting up a triage center was just about instant.

It could have been much, much worse.

[Kristofor]

I suspect it will end up being much worse still.

One positive (unless it turns out to be the cause of the collapse) is that there was resurfacing work going on so instead of 8 lanes of traffic there were only 6.

The bridge (busiest in the state with 200,000 cars/day) was bumper to bumper in rush hour at the time of the collapse. There didn't look to be anywhere near enough cars on the rubble to account for that. The bridge spec says it's 64 feet above the river, but I would guess that could be closer to 70 right now based on our lack of rainfall.

When I lived in Roseville, and again when I was finishing up my degree at the U I would cross that bridge multiple times per day. I'm greatful I won't have to deal with that mess for the next couple years.

This bridge is at one of the narrowest spots on the Mississippi in the Twin Cities just below St. Anthony Falls and the lower St. Anthony lock and dam (it collapsed onto the lower approach to the lock, so no barges going up river for a while). While the approaches also collapsed thankfully it wasn't one of the longer or higher bridges around.

[gwyneth]

I suspect it will end up being much worse still.

One positive (unless it turns out to be the cause of the collapse) is that there was resurfacing work going on so instead of 8 lanes of traffic there were only 6.

The bridge (busiest in the state with 200,000 cars/day) was bumper to bumper in rush hour at the time of the collapse. There didn't look to be anywhere near enough cars on the rubble to account for that.

I should have written more precisely--that the outcome for the 60 kids on the school bus could have been much, much worse.

The estimates for 'non-accounted for' or 'missing' cars are so inconsistent--and so are the reports of how many lanes were going, the freight train situation under the bridge, and so on. To me, it's amazing that so many people survived, especially the school bus--it apparently was just a few feet from the truck that exploded in the first few minutes.

Also it's hard to see how any city would have done better after such a catastrophe than the way the Minneapolis community responded, in terms of official preparedness and reaction, and residents in general. There are many reasons that people all over the midwest love the Cities.

And thank god it didn't happen during winter, particularly this past January when temps got below -25.

[mater]

What a tragedy. Who would have thought driving across the bridge that it would collapse.

[scorrpio]

Most current update as on Bloomberg news:
9 confirmed dead, 20 still missing. There were an estimated 50 cars on the bridge when 3 out of 4 sections collapsed. Tragic.

[jhart]

All of my family accounted for. Youngest son (33) was driving south on 35W and if he had left a few minutes earlier he would have been right on top of it. Thankfully, he is fine, but got tied up in a mess of traffic for an hour or so.
Actually, the lane were down to 2 each way, as they were doing resurfacing on the bridge. Nothing structural. So it kept the amount of cars down. Looks like they will be trying to see how many cars are in the river under the concrete today. Thgere were 18 construction workers on the bridge at the time, 17 accounted for, 1 missing.
Number of deaths are at least 4 and conflicting reports of 7 or 9. I believe there will be more once the cars in the water are gone thru. They did have divers on the scene last night, but no real reports as to what they saw or found under the water.
Certainly could have been a lot worse. Many civilians were on the spot and gave immense help to the victims prior to trained people getting there.

[Ed62]

What a tragedy. Like most others, I saw pictures of it this morning.

This reminds me of a time when they were building an extension of Cline Avenue (a freeway) in East Chicago, IN. It would eventually tie in with the Illinois Skyway. As they were building it, a bridge collapsed, killing 14 people (all workers on the bridge). This was about 25 years ago.

Not long after that, my wife was working in the hospital, as a registered nurse. One of her patients was a young man, in his early 20s, who became a vegetable from the collapse. Sometimes I think there are outcomes worse than death.

Ed

[dkhoward]

I read a report not long ago (am I am looking for it to confirm) which said that the infrastructure of the both the transportation system and the basic necessities off life in a lot of the United STates are reaching a critical point in their design life. In some Eastern cities, the basic service delivery systems (water, sewer, electricity, gas) are approaching 100 years old and were designed originally for a lifespan of 50 years.

Bridges were talked about at length with the observation that a conservative estimate is that 70% of the major bridges in the eastern half of the US are at a point that in the next 5 years they will become dangerous.

SOunds like we have a critical situation because of deferred maintenance and replacement because of cash flow shortfalls

[Ed62]

I remember seeing something along those lines several years ago. Chicago has had it's problems with water lines which were antiquated. Likely other cities have had problems too. We just don't hear about them.

Ed

[gwyneth]

The History Channel has shown various programs about the problem, and periodically articles show up in various publications.

The New York water system probably gets the most coverage. The aqueduct from Croton Reservoir was supposedly obsolete in the 30s--and is still unchanged.

That steam explosion in NYC a couple of weeks ago has been cited as an example of the problem.

Some cities are just disasters waiting to happen. Baltimore concrete and mortar are notoriously weak (both excessive sand and some quirk of the geology of the other materials)...add that to some poorly handled underground streams and a residual, archaic system in which many buildings in the city are on land technically owned by a second property holder who collects ground rent and sooner or later something bad is going to happen.

In cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore other 'sleeping' problems include an unknown number of engineering and structural decisions made in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th century lying beneath streets and buildings and affecting other engineering and structural decisions made somewhat later but still in the murky past.

Just evaluating the country's infrastructure to determine the issues that confront it would probably take a decade.