holy...shit.

[Yellow No. 5]

So, about 30 min ago a major bridge over the Mississippi in downtown Minneapolis (about 5 miles from my house) just collapsed into the river, during rush hour.

I drive over this bridge several times a week. I'm pretty freaked out at the moment.

http://www.startribune.com/

[Baker]

That does have holy shit written all over it.

/Just turned on the news .. there are a lot of cars in the water. That looks like a 50 foot drop. A school bus with 30 kids managed to stop right before the edge.

[Solecord]

Wow crazy. You can watch live coverage of what happened on www.foxnews.com

[Yellow No. 5]

Me (and my 2 year old) drove over this bridge twice yesterday.

[scar3crow]

Thats pretty fucking crazy... Though my second thought is... its an admin party, and... this is General Quake? Nonetheless, nuts.

[ORL]

That's quite horrific. It reminds me of the time when I was away, that the house across from my street from mine, caught on fire and killed two people. I was stunned to see the house the next day all black and torn up.

But yeah, a bridge collapsing is extreme. I just hope that no one was killed.

[Baker]

Thats pretty fucking crazy...

I hope most of the people live, although that one tractor trailer looked rather smashed to me.

I really would have not expected something like this to happen in Minneapolis.

[joao93]

Funny americans. It's only a tragedy when it's related to your country. Tragedies are happening everywhere, and I never saw a single post about 'em here. Now, this is a tragedy.

[Baker]

I knew about the Brazilian plane crash and thought it was very sad, but plane crashes happen all around the world about once every other month.

A bridge collapsing in Minneapolis --- a REALLY nice city -- is a shocker.

I think a bridge collapsed over the Mississippi in Nebraska/Missouri/somewhere around there a few years ago and while definitely rare, it wasn't particular surprising.

Minneapolis is a VERY nice city. One of the best in the USA.

[Canadian*Sniper]

just saw it on the news. At least 3 dead and 37 injured. Still searching. The river doesn't look that erratic to cause the damage. How old was the bridge?

[Solecord]

I tuned in for a bit... they kept bringing up the fact that the bridge was under construction but was still open during it?

[=peg=]

glad u'r still with us yeller!

nasty shit..

[spooker]

reminds me of the tacoma bridge disaster--the bridge that swayed like it was made of jelly and then collapsed in 1940. they showed this video of it in my history class:



fast forward to 1:15 (or 3:08 counting down), it's wild

[Yellow No. 5]

Just imagery wise it's pretty staggering, I can't remember seeing anything like this since the bay bridge in SF collapsed in the earth quake. Tragedy wise it's not that major, it's pretty amazing that so far there are only 9 reported deaths (although 20 still missing). I have been over this bridge thousands of times. Like I said I crossed it twice less than 24 hours before it collapsed. I currently live about 5 miles from it, though I used to live 6 blocks from it.

This hits close to home for everyone in the twin cities though as I think it's the busiest bridge over the river. There are 3 million people in the metro area here and probably 60% of them have been over this bridge in the last month. 140,000 cars crossed over it every day.

The bridge was built in 1967, and was 65 feet above the water. It was kind of a weird bridge, known for swaying a bit and looking kind of unsafe. Some friends and I used to go hang out by the river under it. It reminded me of one of those rickety old wood train bridges over some huge gorge out west, that just looked like it could fall at any minute.

What's boggling is why it happened now without any apparent reason. Minnesota is 100 in the summer and -30 in the winter, so I would really think this would be much more likely in the winter when the steel contracts. This was an 8 lane bridge, with only 2 lanes open due to resurfacing. Normally it would probably have hundreds of cars going 70 over it, rather than the 60 or so mostly just sitting on it when it fell. Everyone here obviously is wondering if the construction has something to do with it. They have been saying "no no it was just cosmetic, pavement, etc" but in a press conference the governor said "...they were also working on the joints...".

Traffic wise, this is gonna be a nightmare. I'm glad I don't really need to cross the river much.

[Baker]

Traffic wise, this is gonna be a nightmare. I'm glad I don't really need to cross the river much.

Time to move to the other side of the river :d :d