Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis
 

On Sky News now - 8 lane wide brige over the river Mississippi, the whole thing has just fallen into the river :eek:

4 lanes wide according to the news reports

wcco.com - I-35W Bridge Collapse Into Mississippi River

Yep, 4 lanes each side, although not all of them were open as they working on the bridge. Looks like the maintenance work may be responsible according to the initial reports :eek:

just saw it on gmtv about an hour ago. not good is it.

bit stupid of the presenters to be hapouring on about it being a catastrophe though.

thoughts are with the familys of those killed:(

Jebus :eek2:

Possibly although this version just indicates cosmetic work? Unless the lane closures had an effect on load bearing and integrity of the structure? (doubt it though).


"Road crews had been working on the 40-year-old bridge's deck, joints, guardrails and lights this week. "None of it would be related to the structure," said Bob McFarlin, assistant to Minnesota Transportation Commissioner Carol Molnau."

How scary is that :eek:

Not trolling here trust me but with it being Americans are you less concerned about this or is it just me?

Only just seen this, shocking :eek:

i feel awful saying this, but no its not just you.

dont get me wrong, its a horrible thing to happen to anyone, but the fact its not round the corner from me, on say the humber bridge...

Of course it's a horrible thing to happen and I'm not wishing it on anybody but had it being say in another European country I'd have a lot more empathy towards the people. As it is I'm feeling more.... Meh. :o

personally I'm a bit concerned because the comapany I work for has it's head office in Minneapolis :(

A report from a local at Bridges fall and cell phones die - eerie parallels with the situation we get in this country when we have *disasters*....

Dave

I thought that the networks deliberately "switched" over to give the emergency services priority to make and receive calls etc.

otherwise (e.g. in the American situation) you'd have a hundred thousand septics calling their freinds to "tell" them about the latest "Gee-Wizz" disaster that's like "Feckin 9-11 Maaan" ;).......

Horrible thing to happen.

However, I am getting a little pissed off with the news, particularly BBC news.

"They've ruled out terrorism?"

F. F. SAKE!! get a grip! not every bad thing in the world is related to terrorism. We get the picture, the governments want us to live in fear. Its getting beyond now.

Having worked for a company with its head office in St Paul (the adjoining twin city to Minneapolis) and been out there for a week i'd say it was a cracking place and met loads of nice people whileout at bars/bowling alleys etc, not the normal air head loud mouthed idiots you normally associate with the U.S.

I'm surprised by this accident as the place came across as a rich and prosperous area and not somewhere you would associate with run down and old and out of date infrastructure. Bridges don't just collapse out the blue when only having been inspected 2 years previous so there is more to this than lack of maintenance.

When you see some of the quality of work on many products in the USA - it becomes less of a surprise. Cheap cars, cheap clothes etc all badly made unfortunately. Obviously, we're all just guessing at the cause of collapse at the moment.

totally agree.
went to see Minnesota Wilds in NHL play-off earlier this year, cracking match and cracking place.

Totally agree.

Suprised the recent floods weren't blamed on terrorists with giant watering cans.

Re the mobile phones, if something major happens the networks can do a few things, they can turn on special features which means the network can take a lot more voice traffic but at a reduced quality or they can just bar the public non 999/112 calls and just allow emergency services sims to operate. This can be applied on a cell by cell basis so only effecting a few square km.

However its also possible the bridge collapse may have taken a cable out and the local power went down etc.

I happened to have the Comedy News Network ;) on in the background when this happened and I thought "how many seconds before the word 'terrorist' is used" sure enough about 30 seconds into the breaking news report up popped the word. *sigh* Would a terrorist cell really waste half of a bridge in Minneapolis? I don't think so. If they were going to do it, they'd do the whole bridge not just one side, plus I think they might choose a bigger target than Minneapolis, perhaps a bridge in DC.

America, wake up, the terrorists have won, you are living in fear, always wondering if that backfire of a car is really some terrorist blowing up something.

Death toll has dropped to four at the moment, but they expect it could rise as there are at least 20 people reported missing.

Somebody fecked up somewhere on this one. Not sure how much or little would need to be done to a bridge support structure to bring the whole bridge down, perhaps a bit too much digging around the foundation of a support column. I'm sure we'll know more in a day or so.

Does anyone remember:

A Portugal bridge collapse killing 70 in 2001?

An Indian bridge collapse killing 33 in 2005?

A Pakistan bridge collapse killing 40 in 2006?

:confused:

I doubt it, because those did not happen in the biggest and bestest country in the whole wide world.

just been speaking to colleagues in Minneapolis and apparently the 2006 structural survey found cracks in one of the support beams but was not deemed to be serious and was being monitored.

Yes
No
No

To be fair DCI, I doubt I'll remember this bridge collapsing in a year or so's time either :)

What bridge ;) :D

Nearly 70 killed in Iraq yesterday by car bombs etc yet it hardly gets a mention on the news.

Only 4 are confirmed dead in the US which is less than have died on the UKs roads today.

Chip

I've been over that bridge recently :o