Bridge collapses into Mississippi!!!
 

Watching it on the news right now!!!

Approximatly an hour ago at 6:05 CT a bridge spanning the Mississippi in Minniapolis collapsed during rush hour. No word on any casualties but there was a school bus that had 20 - 30 kids on the bridge at the time. :o

Here's a Yahoo article:

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/2...apse_ny117.jpg

edit: The news is now saying 7 people have died

Oh my goodness! That is so sad and devastating.

I just saw this on the news and I know exactly where that bridge is and have gone over it many times. :(

Update:

58 injured and aproximatly 6 dead. There were 60 kids on the bus (musta been a HUGE bus). 1 of the fatality due to drowning.

They still don't know why the bridge collapsed. :ohwell:

Constructions, Form Devastator!

Crap, I know a few people that have to take that bridge durning the day.

60 kids? Huge bus? Nah, probably a conventional...they hold up to 72.

*looks* Yep a 72 psgr conventional...an International too.

it looks fine, intact. Thank goodness for that! Kids got out fine. If I was the driver, I would be needing clean undies and I'd QUIT!

0_O


OMG...how terrible is that!??


My prayers go out to those in...wherever it is the collapse was!!

I was watching this yesterday, what a horrible thing to happen! It's kind of scary because I always trust public bridges and elevators and stuff... amusement park rides?... My mother is always afraid to cross bridges and I always thought it was a stupid thing to fear but then this happens. What really can you do to prevent it because I'm sure they did routine maintinence checks on such a hightly used road, right?

Yeah its had a routine check up every year and nothing was serious was serious enough for it to be rebuilt.

I guess were getting federal aid on this one, there looking into getting it fixed right away.

All the stations have been covering it around here, if I remember right theres a total of 20-30 people missing.

Our gov. said there treating the bridge as a "crime scene" investagation to find out what caused it to collapse.

OMG that would be horrible if it was intentional. I'll be watching this story now to find out if there is in fact foul play at work.

It wasn't intentional; it was a structural failure. What is meant by treating it like a crime scene is simply how all of the debris will be treated. Basically, none of it is moving until a bunch of people say so.

Ah yes that is what I thought. Could it just be that it was too old and run down. Would steal or whatever it's made of become weaker over time?

It happened in Minneapolis, Minnesota...don't want your thoughts and prayers headed toward the wrong people :P .

This is pretty sad. Especially since 2 years ago it was deemed "structurally deficient".

^ :lol: :lol: :lol: Nice catch. My uncle and grandfather live in Minneapolis which is why this story has caught my attention. My prayers to out to the affected as well.
FOR REAL! WTF

Well, didn't I have a spazmatic moment? :lol:


Anyways....



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7.../prayercat.jpg




PRAYER CAT IS PRAYING FOR THEM! :D

yeah they have been saying that along with adding that it didnt need to be rebuilt any time soon. I'm just waiting to hear what the real cause was, and I guess over the next few days they will be realeasing the names of those that died, but I believe there still looking for those that are missing.

I aint so sure about the crap that it didnt need any rebuilding or work after the findings of those structural issues, looks like they were wrongo.

I started to think about the Huey P Long bridge in NOL...this is one SCARY bridge, opened in 1935, and holds both auto AND rail traffic. It's a long drop into the river. It doesnt look scary in the photos but being ON it....yuk. We got stuck in traffic on it and when I was on the train I look out and see for miles, all river under us. That was frightening. Now...how well is that bridge structurally for it's age?

Oh my giddy god!

I hope they find out how it happened, shed some light on it. Its horrible that people died but it could have been worse. Still, a life is a life..God it just so horrible.

Yea.. The governor of Washington's now wanting all the bridges to be inspected.

Local news reporter was reporting at this 100 year old bridge that's in use but a bit run down....they mentioned that every once in a while pieces of it fall to the ground. And what's the reaction of the inspector? "Eh...it's safe...nobody's gotten hurt from the falling debris..." :roll:

But it makes me scared since I go across the Narrow's bridge to get to work. Yes there's that new bridge but still... I don't wanna end up in the water with the remains of Galloping Gertie and the herd of Giant Pacific Octopus! :ohwell:

I hate that lives have to be lost before they take action.

^ Sadly they didn't know this would happen and since they didn't know... it probably wasn't worth the money and time fixing something that "nobody's gotten hurt" yet. Money makes the USA go round. Now that people have died they probably wish they would have done something but they didn't know for sure, so they didn't want to spend the cash.

I can say for one that the bridge was probably there last thing on there list before this tragic incident, we've been in a bit of debt sence venture came and laid the smack down on poltics which he screwed up a bit over here so there was a lot of places that needed to have some money sunk into them.

Plus right before this we were going to ask for emergy funds for the drought we've been going through thats been effecting the crops, our gov was just having a look over the crops to get an idea weather we would have to or not before the bridge went down.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070822/...apse_pigeons_3

Pounded and strained by heavy traffic and weakened by missing bolts and cracking steel, the failed interstate bridge over the Mississippi River also faced a less obvious enemy: Birds, specifically pigeons.

Inspectors began documenting the buildup of pigeon dung on the span near downtown Minneapolis two decades ago.

Experts say the corrosive guano deposited all over the Interstate 35W span's framework helped the steel beams rust faster.

Although investigators have yet to identify the cause of the bridge's Aug. 1 collapse, which killed at least 13 people and injured about 100, the pigeon problem is one of many factors that dogged the structure.

"There is a coating of pigeon dung on steel with nest and heavy buildup on the inside hollow box sections," inspectors wrote in a 1987-1989 report.

In 1996, screens were installed over openings in the bridge's beams to keep pigeons from nesting there, but that didn't prevent the building of droppings elsewhere.

Pigeon droppings contain ammonia and acids, said chemist Neal Langerman, an officer with the health and safety division of the American Chemical Society. If the dung isn't washed away, it dries out and turns into a concentrated salt. When water gets in and combines with the salt and ammonia, it creates small electrochemical reactions that rust the steel underneath.

"Every time you get a little bit of moisture there, you wind up having a little bit of electrochemistry occurring and you wind up with corrosion," said Langerman. "Over a long term, it might in fact cause structural weaknesses."

Langerman emphasized that he wasn't saying pigeon dung factored into the collapse of the 40-year-old bridge. "Let's let the highway transportation and safety people do their job," he said.

The problem is familiar to bridge inspectors everywhere.

The Colorado Department of Transportation spent so much time cleaning pigeon manure off bridges that it is embarking on a two-year research project looking for ways to keep pigeons away from its spans.

"It can be damaging to our structures because it's slightly acidic and it has other compounds in it that can dissolve especially things like concrete," said Patricia Martinek, the agency's environmental research manager.

Pigeon guano isn't just a danger to the bridges.

In the Denver area, the Colorado DOT pays outside environmental specialists to clean bridges wearing full biohazard suits with respirators because of heightened fears about bird flu and other diseases, said Rob Haines, who supervises maintenance there.

Keeping pigeons off bridges usually requires a multi-pronged strategy that can include netting to block holes and surfaces, spikes to keep them from landing, and sometimes poisoning, shooting or trapping the birds, said John Hart, a Grand Rapids, Minn.-based wildlife biologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The problem is that pigeons are naturally drawn to bridges and tall buildings since they're descended from cliff-dwellers, said Karen Purcell, who heads Project PigeonWatch at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Bridges offer shelter from predators and flat surfaces for nesting and roosting.

"It's a nice fit for them," Purcell said.

Meanwhile, representatives of Minnesota and North Dakota met Wednesday to discuss repairs to a highway bridge that was closed Tuesday after a crack was found in a girder support bracket, said Les Noehr, a district engineer for the North Dakota Department of Transportation. The 53-year-old bridge over the Red River between Robbin, Minn., and Drayton, N.D., would not have collapsed even if the cracked bracket had failed, said Minnesota's state bridge engineer, Dan Dorgan.

The span is scheduled for replacement in 2009. The nearest alternate bridge is 17 miles away.