this is very shocking and sad. I am in the group of people who just chose to take a different route after work today. I take 35 on my way home everyday like thousands of others. Not to be pessimistic but, it's not likely that the death toll will stay low. I pray for those both directly and indirectly affected by this tragedy.
it droved into the parkinglot looking like any regular outback then the flashers came on and i'm like, WTF? now i gotta keep an eye out for em green leggy outbacks!
I'd hope not, but budgets and beauracracy seem to take priority sometimes. But I really don't know anything about how they actually inspect bridges. I'd hope some sort of x-ray, ultrasound, magnaflux, or something along those lines.
another weird thing, i go to school next to the downtown police station, and they rolled out a completely incognito pontiac g6 cop car, a plymouth mini van and a camry. none of them had any indications that were visible they were police cars, they were some of the slickest undercovers i've ever seen, all being driven by non uniformed cops. definitely is going to make me think twice downtown
"5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has been checking state and federal records to learn more about the bridge and we have discovered a lot of history. The bridge was built in 1967 and is 1,900 feet long. The bridge hangs 64 feet above the Missisippi River. It was designed to span the river without any supports in the river. The goal was to avoid having the big cement piers in the water which would get in the way of river traffic. That means the bridge spans 458 feet between supports. 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS spoke with the Minnesota Transportation Commissioner Len Levine who served under Governor Rudy Perpich. He told us between 40 and 50 percent of the 20,000 bridges in Minnesota are deficient in some way. "The number itself is alarming because it is a very high number. So when you look at the overall state-wide bridge system, it calls for enhanced inspection and improvements. Whether that means people should be afraid to go over bridges. No they're not, I will continue to drive over bridges, as you will. We need an aggressive program to rebuild the infrastructure," Levine said. Levine went on to say this is a nationwide problem. He says there will be a lot of finger pointing before this is all over. One of those who appears to be already pointing fingers is structural engineer Timothy Galarn. "The state, whoever did the inspection, which was likely to be MnDOT, noticed and observed cracking in the structural steel members, the main girders that hold the bridge up in the air. What it means is that the bridge is no longer going to stay stable," Galarn said." :eek3:
I could care less how they got them, they could have bought them from dealerships for all I know, the scary part is they're a lot of them suddenly coming out of the woodwork.
What I don't get, is why they would put a bridge that does not obstruct water traffic, just a hundred feet or so from a 10th ave bridge that obstructs that water traffic anyway...
i said exact same thing when i seen pic and read the design purpose yeah this was said by that one political dude speaking to public so he might of mis said something or the other.. now its atleast 7...(from kare 11 on tv)
good to hear you pop in - knew you worked down there and didn't NORMALLY cross that bridge but still...
Not to speculate but my guess is the cause is from a number of related factors. Fatique cracking, reduction in the root cross section of the structure due to corrosion (constant road salt exposure + warm roadway = perfect environment for corrosion), and increased stresses from the road deck resurfacing finally did it in. Each individual factor did not raise a large enough flag to the inspectors.
I guess it's fortunate that half the lanes were closed off because of the road work. But for that, this whole thing would have been significantly worse.
I would say that recovery mode is the worst part but I'm hoping for more miraculous rescues from that scene. It's gotta be one of the worst feelings to rescue workers when word passes down that you're now doing "recovery" work :emo:
I was thinking of every one I know in the cities last night and praying you were all o.k. Hearing about the close calls made my heart skip a beat this morning. Made me think of the quote, "Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much " But I think I'll add, "Work like you don't need money, Love like you've never been hurt, And RallyCross like no one's is watching."
Official Death toll now down to 4 according to Fox, CNN, KSTP, and WCCO. Expected to rise during recovery operations.
You need to account for the fact that people are being seperated to multiple hospitals, information will be spotty for a little while. Some news agencies are only reporting from 1 Hospital.
my good friend was supposed to be working on that bridge today. You could see the mill he works on laying half way in the water. The crew that was on the bridge are guys/girls he works with everyday.
the thing i cant figure out is this... "He told us between 40 and 50 percent of the 20,000 bridges in Minnesota are deficient in some way. " how the hell do they see that as anywhere near ok? honestly
i have seen the mini van. green one? older? he was pulling people over on one of the highways a while back.
They might be accounting for minor things like dead lightbulbs and loose bolts on the railings or guardrails too. I'm just playing devil's advocate here.
beat me to it - engineering and technical documents do this all the time, big words that mean little things
yet another mythbuster comment.. who gives a ****.... they didnt disprove it it was plausible if I remember due to the fact that it happened a few times with marching... MARCHING rythmically ARMIES....
even still, what is the purpose of MnDOT, arent they the ones that should be controlling this stuff? why build worthless roads and resurface roads rarely traveled on when they dont serve as much of a purpose as something like a bridge? it seems to me that we should be focusing on the things that we depend on like bridges a little more. we pay in for it, i expect something back.
At this point I think speculation is useless, there are so many different factors that weigh into things like this that it doesn't do much good to point fingers until you know who and where to point them at. I'm sure we'll be finding out a lot in the coming months. The fact they have video of it is going to aid the investigation, as it'll give them a starting point to work with which is a huge help in a situation like this.
So I saw the site. I'm sitting at the U of Mn and had to drive in today (traffic wasn't too bad at 10am). I came through town on Washington Ave and as I crossed 35W I looked north to the gaping hole in the road. Wow. I've seen destruction and mayhem in my life but it was where such things were expected. It's quite a different thing when it's the same view I've looked at everyday for 6 months and suddenly there's a giant hole where the road formerly rose up to touch the sky. Media is also crawling all over my parking garage (Metrodome Holiday Inn AMPCO parking lot. Metrodome Holiday Inn is the Red Cross HQ for the disaster). A lot of somber faces in the area.
This has the danger of veering off in a political direction that I don't want to touch, but the long and short of it is.... MnDOT has been woefully underfunded for many years in proportion to the driving public's expectations of road quality. You and I probably feel that we pay enough, or some would even say we currently pay too much and get too little in return. But there is no getting around the fact that MnDOT simply doesn't have the budget to address enough of these major projects. As time passes, costs only increase--the cost of labor, the cost of materials, the cost of acquiring right-of-way, etc. If the governor and the legislature decide that we need to place a higher priority on road construction/maintenance/expansion, then we have to find a way to pay for it. There are different approaches to finding the money...this past spring legislators attempted a 5 cent increase in the gas tax, the public wasn't enthused, and the governor vetoed it. The governor's approach is to bond for these things (borrow from the future). No one has agreed yet on the appropriate method, so we've done nothing. We did decide last November via constitutional amendment to dedicate a portion (no more than 60%) of the Motor Vehicle Sales Tax to roads.
Looking at this pic, maybe some of the cause was the support tilted?? or probably from teh wieght of everything falling... it will be interesting seeing what comes of this...
Zola is correct. The gov veto'd 2 bills that would have dump TONS of money into the road system. he didn't want to raise the gas tax .10 over 2 years, and he didn't want to impose a new tax for people who make over 250k a year. The new wage tax would have allowed the state to lower proterty taxes for everyone AND generate 200mil a year for roads. So at this point in time, the reason MNdot has no money is because Mr. Veto killed all of it. As for the death toll thing, cnn is saying 7 people because of some redneck that called in to them last night. he was saying that it worse than 9-11 and stuff. Kinda funny cuz cnn was making a big deal over the fact that they couldn't get the fire on the semi put out.:laugh: CNN was using the kare11 feed, and they kept replay that clip over and over. Media is over sensationalizing everything.
well i am not disregaurding that either, infact, quite the opposite. i am and always have been more than fine with a gas tax, road tax, ect... i have been over the pond and seen what the roads are like in germany and how seriously they take it. they pay in alot, but they get alot back in return. i simply was trying to state that IMO they were focusing on the wrong things too.
I'd bet that semi fire was out pretty quick once Minneapolis got their aerial up. 1500gpm + tends to extingush a small fire like that pretty quickly, especially with a bit of class A foam added to it. But there's no news in an extinguished vehicle... <-----Would spray newsies on scene if he didn't think it'd be a waste of good water.
how do you know they are focusing on the wrong things? you're just interpreting what you see (hence the imo lol). you see lots of road construction but you never see bridge inspections, that doesn't mean mndot isn't observant of bridge conditions. i agree that big changes need to be made but you can't just say they are focusing on the wrong things without something to corroborate that (the bridge possible corroborates that but at this time it can't be said certainly). note, i am not saying that mndot is focusing on the right things either. sure they make a handy scapegoat, but I will hold judgment until more facts come out. not trying to argue (although i am), really just providing another point of view
