Thoughts to you Minnesotans and all affected.

The Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, downtown, has collapsed at rush hour.

Big bridge. About 2000-foot (600 m) span. 60-70 (18 m) feet high. In the water.

Edit: Numerous trauma patients showing up at area hospitals. Fires on bridge, maybe fuel spills. Yikes.

It's the wide bridge in the middle of this Google Map.

Homeland Security says it's unlikely terrorists, likely construction problem.

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How could something like this happen? There was construction going on, but it was just resurfacing from what I've heard. Good weather, stable earth and with some lanes closed the load should not have been excessive.

Looks like the whole thing just collapsed.

Looking east.

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Winter road salt! Just brainstorming. It's what, only about 40 years old.

Heard it was structurally inspected 3 years ago. Yeah, the surfacing shouldn't have bothered the structure.

They say construction lessened the impact probably, for the road was narrowed so maybe only 50 cars were on it at rush hour, 6:05 local time.

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Posting from a safe distance in St. Paul, but I don't really have more information than you could read from the reports. News coverage is just giving recaps, not much insight into what caused it more specifically than a structural collapse. No evidence of foul play.

From the pictures I saw, it looked like the supports may have failed. The twisting and damage I saw didn't look like somethng that would have occurrred from the spans simply falling straight down.

But that's a conclusion drawn from a casual glance at the helicopter footage of the aftermath. . .

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Keeper of the Jabberwock

look closely.. the big center span (about 500 feet) was supported by hinged piers on either side. it sure looks like the center just fell straight down, and the outer pieces just kind of pivoted away from the river, due to there no being any balancing weight on the other side. eyewitness accounts seem to say this is the way it happened.

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

Number one suspicion so far is that a combination of an unbalanced load (due to lane closures for construction), heat (it's been unseasonably hot here lately with lots of days in the 90's), good breeze (10 gusting to 20, and that had to be amplified in the river valley), all added up to the collapse.

Those things piled onto a bridge that was built on the cheap. Documents already uncovered by some investigative journalists (so take it with a grain of salt until the actual investigators get their hands on them), indicate the bridge was considered not in top shape several years ago. The structural members were rated only 4 out of 9. An engineer interviewed said that is a rating that should cause serious concern. On top of that it is a truss bridge, not built with big huge steel beams as most bridges that size.

The stuff could really hit the fan when all the details of those inspection reports become widely available. The engineer said that kind of relatively light construction does not carry an unbalanced load very well; and also that no section can hold up well on it's own. Would explain why the whole thing came down very quickly after the center section failed.

Lots of speculation so far, but first indicators are that this was a poor design for the busiest bridge in the state. Certainly not strong enough to have ignored the problems found in those earlier inspections.

EDITED, removed an extra "not."

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

Here's some specific information on the bridge. Anything and everything is the focus of a hobby it seems.

They announced the collapse during the Indian's game (the Twins were playing at home, and they wanted to announce that today's game had been postponed and that the series with the Indians which is scheduled to start tomorrow might be affected).

I originally heard there were six fatalities, and later heard that there were est. 50 cars on the bridge at the time. My heart goes out the the six +/- people who died, but was astounded at how many survived. Horrible tragedy, but it could have been much much worse.

I lived in Pittsburgh for a while, which I considered to be Bridgeland USA...being bordered on 2 of three sides by rivers. The hundreds of times I crossed those bridges, I never once thought of the possibility that they might collapse. Can't imagine that.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

I wish the reporters would explain some comments they make (Ok; I've expressed that before)

CNN...
Huh? Sounds like apples and oranges (again). Confirmed vs estimated.

Either that, or 3 people made a remarkable recovery.

EDIT: There might be another explaination...right now theres another headline.
"'I thought I was dead,' survivor says"
Maybe 3 people reported themselves as dead?

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

The relatively small number of fatalities appears to be because:

1 - The bridge collapsed like a pancake (a flat-falling one, not a flipping one). An amazing number of vehicles stayed on the bridge for the ride down to terra firma, many remaining upright. A couple people were interviewed within minutes and they said the impact of landing was significant, but sore backs and bruises were the only injuries many had. A few guys got out of their cars immediately and went to work pulling kids off that bus and whatnot; rescuing as many of the people who could not get out themselves as fast as they could.

2 - The place was crawling with civilians immediately after the collapse. It is in an urban area of course; and loads of residents (including students from the immediately adjacent U of M) immediately went to work getting people off the bridge and pulling people out of the water. There was footage within minutes of people in the water checking cars for survivors, and a small army of civilians crawling all over the embankments and collapsed portions.

So the fatality count as of last night was 7; this morning one station was reporting 9. They're strictly guessing still at how many cars are in the water; they are saying about 50. It shouldn't take long to get a good count as the water is only about 10' deep. The assumption (may be a lot of hope - but the video confirms a lot of rescues) is that most of those cars are empty.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

The number of fatalities that have been reported are the confirmed ones only. The news said that there are over 20 missing, so the total death toll will likely be near 30 when all is said and done. A tragedy indeed.

The wording keeps changing along with the numbers, so it is hard to tell what they are saying.

But, 4 are confirmed which is less than what they thought at the time when there were no confirmations.

I understand that in the confusion of the breaking and changing story, we need to wait for facts to start to clarify each other, but, for people who are supposed to be literary experts, I am disappointed with the wording.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

Here's a link to a set of photos from the NYT article. (Don't know if you'll have to register to view them, but it's a good news site to have access to and worth the small hassle of registration if it is required).

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/200...DGE_index.html

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

Here is a video of most of the collapse, from a security camera nearby.

CNN link

Makes you wonder how many other bridges have a "Poor" superstructure condition.

I've long given up hope that journalists would be literary experts.

There's a fundamental difference between a journalist and any other wordsmith in the English language. The journalist must be right for now; if you write books, or even nonfiction magazine articles (other than for Time, Newsweek, or the like--or our beloved Weekly World News; they're fiction writers), you have to be right for a heck of a lot longer. It may look like sloppiness, but it's based on our voracious need to get all the information now.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

From what I understand, lots. Not a majority, but a sizeable percentage. A lot of the interstate infrastructure was built 40+ years ago, so these things are entering advanced middle age. And the routine maintenace and inspection is the kind of thing that gets put off when budgets are tight, for both cities and states.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

NPR this morning was reporting that one of the probable contributing factors in the collapse was the lack of any support colums beneath the bridge. During the design phase they decided support columns would get in the way of the large amount of barge traffic so didn't place any.

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

Just some local information for you Swift (in case you haven't seen it yet)
ODOT: 1 In 4 Ohio Bridges Structurally Insufficient
Unfortunately, I have no clue by what they mean as structurally insufficient, or if action has been taken (such as closure or reduced loads)

That sounds like someone taking something out of context. I would hope that the context was more of the design was altered to accomodate....

What? hold up the bridge? Why?

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

From NPR


and

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

Terrible tragedy for many people! I suppose
now someone will compile a list of dodgy
bridges to be avoided. And can inspections
really be objective if a bad report means
extreme economic disruption? It is a
possibility coming up over here. One of our
big suspension bridges is losing wires in the
suspension cables. Microphones have been
installed and hear the occasional ping as they
snap. Rain getting in somewhere. At the
present rate they will be unsafe in ten years
I think. Strange how it makes me remember
pyphon Palin in a notable drama 18 years ago.
It was GBH and he had a mortal fear of going
over bridges. It was funny at the time!

I'm sure it's just a matter of more people making lists. I hear the occasional list of bridges from time to time.
I really do hope that the people involved know that a collapse also means extreme economic disruption.
Ow; that don't sound good at all. I hope a lot of redundancy is built in.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

These post-catastrophe apologetics drive me nuts. Very lame.

There is an old saying, one of my favorites: "Nothing speaks like results."

There is a bridge in the water. There was obviously something very wrong.

To imply after the fact that there was nothing wrong with the bridge is just so much CYA. Obviously, there was something VERY wrong with the bridge. It just didn't get fixed. Whether it was missed because we (all the humans involved, collectively) just did not have the knowledge and skills to find the problem; or whether it was identified and ignored - that is another issue.

I'm an optimist and hope it is the former.

Bottom line is that there is a big bridge in the water. That is proof enough to me that there was something very wrong with it, probably long before the day it fell.

The line that jumps out at me is the one somebody posted from the National Bridge Inventory indicating the bridge was within minimal tolerable limits to be left standing as is. (And that was at least 4 years ago - the category must have a very wide range however it is measured. It was mimimally tolerable 4 years ago, and after 4 years of the heaviest bridge load in the entire state, it was still minimally tolerable).

Maybe it is my hobby of choice, but I have a risk assessment process that does not allow a category like Minimal Tolerable Limits to even be an option on the menu when the cosequence of error is something like a bridge falling down.

When I inspect my rig, each and every component is either in Great Shape & Ready to Perform it's Function in the Extreme, or it is Unsafe & Not to be Used. There should be no in-between for things like planes, parachutes, rocket ships, big bridges, etc.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

That's almost exactly what I was thinking when I was reading the article. Especially the lines like
Obviously, there was a huge risk of failure....it failed.

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

Yeah, I thought the quote should have been, "That doesn't mean they DETECTED a risk of failure". Or, if you want to be even more nit-pickie, "That doesnt' mean they DETECTED a HIGHER risk of failure", as technically I think all bridges have some risk of failure.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

i knew it wouldn't take too long.. .but i've already came across at least one guy who thinks that the government brought the bridge down to make room for the NAFTA superhighway that will supposedly run down I35 from Duluth. MN to Laredo, TX...
that's why they won't let any average Joe American get close to the wreckage- only government stooges- they might be an engineer and figure out how they brought it down...
i fear this is only the tip of the iceberg..

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

I wonder how all the pictures (like the attached) got onto the internet if nobody was allowed near the wreckage

Attached Thumbnails

 

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

that's because it took a while to get the proper people there.. even tho they knew it was coming down. maybe they didn't want to have everyone there- or in the state, or even in the region- otherwise it wouldn't look like an accident..

yeah, there are holes in his "theory".

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...