Breaking: Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis

KSTP TV 5/ME | 8/1/07 | Me

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

Just turned on the news. 35W bridge collapsed in the Mississippi River. Cars, trucks, semis.....

Fires burning, tanker trucks, at least one school bus, more than ten cars......

Just now breaking.......

[jdm]

Good lord! Now they are looking at a freight car and saying they aren’t sure it’s not a passenger car. Are the broadcasters seeing the same images we are?

It's really 1984. A few of the "live" feeds are actually black and white rebroadcasts from the 1960s, colorized for 2007. /sarc

[Glenn]

And I just have not seen a bridge collapse this much all at once before

I remember the Silver Bridge disaster in Ohio/WV so many decades back. Once they start coming apart, they do it quite quickly. Physics is unforgiving. Go look at the World Trade Center for proof of it.

[RDTF]

and imagine what they are saying about some of the hysterical alarmist posts in this thread

[wagglebee]

A dam failure years ago could certainly cause this if the current work altered structural loads in ways the engineers didn’t consider.

[casino66]

They haven’t changed that since last year on 9-11. Don’t think their streaming site is a high priority for them. But you don’t have to listen to Shep. :-)

[small voice in the wilderness]

GOODGAWD, Burbank! Do you want o’reilly monitoring this thread for hate-filled posts??!! He’s gonna tattle on you BIGTIME! lol!

[Pikachu_Dad]

From the news, it was full but all the kids were evacuated unharmed. {assuming there is only one school bus}

[don-o]

Good info

[jackv]

Thank you fatima!!!

[snowsislander]

I’ll bet the people in the Charleston, SC area are thankful for their brand new Cooper River bridge just now. The old one might have been perfectly sound, but it seemed to be getting creakier by the year.

For what it is worth, the old Cooper River Bridge itself suffered a tragedy when it had 240 feet taken out by the freighter Nicaragua Victory in February 1946, with one car going off the bridge:

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Ghosts
Chilling encounters may continue long after bridge is gone
BY KATIE AVON MILLER, Of The Post and Courier Staff

Shortly after the new Cooper River bridge opens, both of the old bridges will come down. But what about the spirits that dwell on them? Will they vanish or relocate and haunt the new bridge?

On Feb. 24, 1946, the Nicaragua Victory was anchored upstream from the John P. Grace Memorial Bridge. The engines were shut down as the 12,000-ton freighter awaited repairs from an earlier accident.  A thunderstorm began to rattle the ship. The night officer ordered the anchor chains loosened; instead, the anchors were accidentally yanked out of the mud.  The freighter drifted downstream, picking up speed as it moved toward the bridge. With the engines shut down, steering or stopping was impossible.

On the bridge at this time were two cars and an Army mail truck. The ship struck the bridge, but the span didn't fall right away. The first car made it safely to Charleston. The driver of the mail truck leapt from his vehicle and ran back down the bridge. The Lawson family was not so lucky. When the Grace Bridge began to fall, the family's dark-green 1940 Oldsmobile had just reached the highest point of the bridge. Elmer Lawson was driving. His wife, Evelyn, was in the passenger seat. His son, Robert, daughter, Diane, and mother, Mrs. Elmer R Lawson, were in the back seat. An onlooker said that Mr. Lawson stopped the car, then began to drive, obviously unsure of what to do. The green sedan plunged 150 feet into the cold water of the Cooper River. It was not until March 19, 1946, that the car was discovered, with all five bodies still inside.

...

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[BenLurkin]

The greedy plaintiff lawyers were going to be all over this from the moment it happened.

[NormsRevenge]

Cnn ,, 3 confirmed dead at this time..

[TaxxMann]

That bridge is right smack in my “backyard”, can see the new one from my windows.

That was a horrible event.

[Palladin]

This is not spectacular? In the terrorist game, something like this strikes fear into the hearts of everyone who has to drive over a bridge every day.

The psychological wallop is terrific.

[AZGunSlinger]

Shep is making YOU Crazy? me too...deep sigh. Why doesn’t Fox dust off Brit Hume or someone more senior for this kind of breaking news? Does anyone think he’s driving away viewers (besides me?)??

[MplsSteve]

Channel 5 is reporting that a structural collapse rescue team is gathering at the souther end of the bridge collapse.

[miliantnutcase]

my folks were on that bridge at 5:30

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

“Sometimes in very hot weather here the highway surface will buckle upwards, making a ridge in the road.”

Roads here, both tar and concrete buckle and blow up on a regular basis in the summer heat. Has a lot to do with how cold it gets here in the winter.

Expansion and contraction thing.....

[BurbankKarl]

You think I care about that runt?

[casino66]

Don’t know why everybody is taling about terrorism. We know it is Bush’s fault.