<p>For those who need to know. Prayers for all.
<a href=“Discovery Hub - News & Technology”>http://www.comcast.net/news/index.jsp?cat=GENERAL&fn=/2007/08/01/729286.html&cvqh=itn_bridgecollapse</a></p>
<p>Horrible. Just turned on the TV to see if there is more news. Prayers for all.</p>
<p>Just tried my brother’s line and “all circuits were busy”.</p>
<p>Brought back memories of they Myannis River bridge when I was in college. A friend lost a good friend of his when that bridge collapsed. It wasn’t nearly as full of cars as this one, though. What a dreadful thing to happen.</p>
<p>I understand that there are now 6 confirmed deaths, several dozen injuries, and it appears that all survivors have been rescued from the actual bridge remains, although they will continue rescue efforts in the river.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1338294.html[/url]”>http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1338294.html</a></p>
<p>I thought of the Mianus River bridge collapse too lafalum, although that didn’t happen at rush hour but about 1:00 or 2:00 a.m.</p>
<p>I thought of the Sunshine Skyway collapse in Tampa years ago and how we couldn’t reach relatives for quite a while, so bethie I hope you got through to your brother…</p>
<p>Hey all you fellow Minneapolis, St. Paul residents,</p>
<p>Are you and your families okay? I’m not sure how many of you there are - tokenadult and SuNa? </p>
<p>The bridge was right by the University of Minnesota.</p>
<p>yes–I do hope all of our CC members are safe! </p>
<p>35W is a major route into downtown Minneapolis and to the Univ of MN which is just a few blocks from the bridge on the other side of the river from downtown. This occurred at a time when many workers would have still been leaving downtown. I work for a large firm downtown and had just left work myself when the collapse occurred, but live in the opposite direction. In addition, the Twins were playing at the Dome last night which is downtown so the traffic coming into the city during rush hour would have been a little heavier than normal as well. </p>
<p>It has been quite impressive to see how the community has responded to this tragedy; I was even impressed that my firm attempted to contact each of its 500+ employees last night to make sure they were all safe. Fortunately I have not personally heard of anyone I know that was involved. I am just so glad all those kids on the school bus are ok!</p>
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<p>Thanks for asking. Another parent PMed me to let me know about this thread. As far as I know, all the members of my local homeschooling support group are safe. Local email traffic is WAY down, because we are all trying to gain news about this very confusing situation. </p>
<p>That bridge used to be my usual commute to my son’s math class at the U of MN. (Yes, the bridge is VERY near to the U of MN Twin Cities campus.) Of course there are alternate routes, but presumably traffic will be worse that ever. I was very impressed with the efforts of everyday passers-by to aid victims of the bridge collapse, and the overall calm professionalism of the rescue personnel. It is VERY puzzling to figure out why the bridge collapsed, but the leading hypothesis is that roadbed upgrade construction work and a passing railroad train set off vibrations that shook apart the bridge’s support structure.</p>
<p>Great to hear from you lizschup and tokenadult. Glad you’re okay. I have relatives in Mpls. I haven’t heard anything, so assume they’re okay (no news is good news), but will try calling today to find out more.</p>
<p>Lizschup – it has been awhile – did your son graduate from college this spring?</p>
<p>Infrastructure just ain’t sexy or glamorous. But in America we have ignored it for too long. Thousands of bridges are in need of repair as are millions of miles of sewers, storm drains and water mains.</p>
<p>For bridges alone, ASCE states, " Approximately 30% of the nation’s 590,750 bridges are classified as structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, and the percentage is significantly higher for urban bridges. It will cost $10.6 billion annually for at least 20 years to eliminate all bridge deficiencies, and at least $7.3 billion annually to prevent the bridge investment backlog from increasing."</p>
<p>Seattle has a long bridge like viaduct that is in terrible condition and considered likely to fall in a major earthquake. But it has become a political football and will probably not be fixed in the next decade. The greens want no replacement, the liberals want a very expensive underground replacement and the pragmatics want to just replace it with something similar. It’s a three way tie. I stay away from it.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.seattlechannel.org/issues/viaduct.asp[/url]”>http://www.seattlechannel.org/issues/viaduct.asp</a></p>
<p>Barrons, and our governor has punted any responsibility for decision making – showing the sort of strong leadership we’ve come to expect of her. We could have elected a polling company and done just about as well. It is a political hot potato, but this is what elected officials are for.</p>
<p>I used to like the Gov as a reasonable democrat but she has punted on this and on the windfarm issue that was really none of her business.</p>
<p>Briefly watching CNN and MSNBC this evening both were talking about infrastructure issues/politics… of all kinds. This might be the tragic wakeup call for improvements - let’s hope so.</p>
<p>Thanks, lizschup and others. My family and I are fine. We live in a suburb north of St. Paul, but this summer my college son has been nannying for a family in Minneapolis. He takes that bridge to their house every day, but this week he joined the family out of town on their vacation. Whew.</p>
<p>If you aren’t a civil engineer and would like to learn more about this kind of structural failure I recommend To Engineer is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design by Henry Petroski. There are probably a zillion better books for professionals, but this is a great read for us laymen who are interested in the subject.</p>
<p>Does anybody remember when the Schoharie bridge on the NYS Thruway fell down? There was a big outcry about the condition of our infrastructure, and then everybody forgot about it a short time later. :(</p>
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<p>Here is an interesting map of all the states and what condition their bridges are in. Interestingly, there doesn’t look like much correlation between states with notoriously high taxes and better infrastructure. What the heck do they spend our money on?!</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20093413/[/url]”>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20093413/</a></p>
<p>Another fun book is Why Buildings Fall Down by Mario Salvadori and Matthys Levy. Salvadori was a very entertaining lecturer who taught structures at Columbia U. I read in the paper that there are 70,000 bridges in the US rated “structurally deficient”.</p>