minneapolis bridge collapse
 

for those who haven't seen it, a bridge collapsed over the miss river, just happened not even two hours ago. no way of knowing yet about injuries, fatalities.

i hope that anyone on here from the area, or who has relatives/friends there, that your loved ones are safe.

Mine are, thank the Lord. My daughter is in Dental school at the U, and crossed the bridge at 5:10 this afternoon. You can imagine how I felt when I heard the news.

Watching this on CNN in total shock. I couldnt fathom being the driver or occupant of one of these cars. My heart goes out to the people affected by such tragic events.

That's just too horrible to imagine. I've often wonderd and someitmes dreamed about this happening but it's just too horrible.

and during rush hour traffic

There was a simliar (but on a much smaller scale) incident in Fort Hunter N.Y. in 1987. The N.Y. State Thruway bridge which crossed the Schoharie Creek there collapsed after heavy rains washed out the concrete bridge abutments. Ten people die when several vehicles fell 50 feet in the creek below. It happen in the early morning hours, so there wasn't too many vehicles crossing then. It had national attention at the time.

Living in the MPLS area, I just crossed that bridge last week. Kinda eery. I hope and pray for everyone involved that they're alright. As of 10PM CST, 7 dead, about 30-40 injured. It's a miracle it's not more than that. My prayers go out to all involved.

Amazing that it is only 7 dead so far. Very unfortunate situation...

Started watching this story about an hour after the collapse, and it reminded me alot of the Northridge Quake in '94! Pancaking of freeway overpasses was shocking then and now. 50 cars are still in the river, the bus full of kids fell 60 ft down and landed upright....2 kids are critical. 7 dead now,but surely more will follow! 2+ yrs of rebuilding.....talk about the commute now.

Horrible. I commute over a bridge every day myself, hard to imagine such a tragic thing happening.

how long before this tragedy is pinned on the Bush administration?
I say within 48-72 hours.

There are no republicans..there are no democrats.




There are only repubrats.


Once you people understand this....why you may be on to something.


And the constant snotting about separation of church and state is a great carny show for these fucl<os to support.


No one can then allow themselves positive thinking time to the OUTRAGEOUS idea of separation of business and state.






You are all FOOLS arguing about the FOOLISH.

seems the bridge was bumper to bumper, and a train passed underneath at the same time...construction work had been ongoing, but supposedly not anything having to do with weight bearing. the bridge had been inspected in '05, and was found to be structurally deficient, scoring a 50 out of 120. i think this will be a case of old bridge, more traffic than it was built to withstand at the time of construction, and most likely with materials that wouldn't be used in this day and age, and then add in bumper to bumper with a full load sitting on the bridge. too much at one time, catastrophic failure.

I think in addition to that, we're going to find out that this was not a good design, and I think that is the key point.

yeah, that caught my eye, the over 400 foot long span so as to not impede river traffic. way back when, that might fly--but like i said, it's forty years later, a hell of a lot more traffic than what they planned for back then. i'd imagine that it will come out that this is a flaw in engineering design.

it was something i noticed when the kids and i drove to churchill....a lot more traffic on interstates than in 'the old days'. two lanes each way doesnt' cut it anymore. have seen write ups lately about our infrastructure nationwide, that it's outdated, and that we need to get moving. this bridge failure is a tragic way to underscore that.

"I don't know if anyone remembers this but former President Clinton warned the new government long time ago about the decaying infrastructure in this country. He said if they don't take care of this problem we will be seeing a lot of tragic events happening in the next few years. "

someone wrote that in response to a cnn article. so yeah, just a matter of time.



but in reality, our interstates do need attention. shame that this kind of stuff can't get funding when votes need to be bought...rather than a fish farm here, a dairy there....

A 2001 study conducted by the Minnesota Department of Transportation found "several fatigue problems" in the bridge's approach spans and "poor fatigue details" on the main truss.

The study suggested that the design of bridge's main truss could cause a collapse if one of two support planes were to become cracked, although it allowed that a collapse might not occur in that event. But, the study concluded, "fatigue cracking of the deck truss is not likely" and "replacement of the bridge ... may be deferred."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said the collapse should trigger action.

"I think we should look at this tragedy that occurred as a wake-up call for us. We have -- all over the country -- crumbling infrastructure, highways, bridges, dams, and we really need to take a hard look at this," Reid said Thursday.

He said it was "the right thing to do" for the infrastructure and the economy. "For every billion dollars we spend in our crumbling infrastructure, 47,000 high-paying jobs are created," Reid said.

Most bridges are inspected every two years and receive ratings based on the conditions of various components, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation

True the interstates need repairs, but PLEASE don't give any control to the guys who run the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I don't know if it is State or Federal or Private groups that run it, but I cannot believe you have to pay to travel on it through Southern Pennsylvania and the road be in that sheety of shape, all of the time.

People always blame the hard winters, yet I-80 is further north, facing alot harder winters, yet is in alot better shape. Unbelieveable.

Sorry for the little rant, but this has always been a very touchy subject for me...

It's either the Bush administration or Clinton...one or the other. Our last two presidents alone are the cause of all the world's problems in history. Quite amazing.

that are infrastructure is old and failing is true, and I think most people are aware of it. but for the pols its not such a sexy item, "elect me and we'll repair our bridges!". <yawn>

I imagine that this tragedy will get some attention to it.
we are not building and modernizing things such as dams, bridges, power plants, refineries, levees, rail, public transport, etc. it requires long term thinking and we don't excel at it.
of course the other small problem is paying for it.

Which is where you will end up hearing people blame the Bush administration for it.

Not that it's his fault really, because nobody before him did anything either -- but now that the issue is front and center, people will start talking, start looking for the money, and realizing where it's all going, how wildly far in debt we are, and why we can't do anything about it even if we want to now.

i haven't been on the penna turnpike in years...that good of shape, huh? sounds like arkansas roads...we don't need a welcome to arkansas sign, we KNOW when we've returned home!

it's called prioritizing...and as was said above, it's not a sexy, elect me i'll fix the roads type subject. it appears we continue to ignore problems--as if katrina wasn't enough to force us to look to ourselves. this stuff doesn't last forever, and takes maintenance to keep fit.

it's a shame that with us being the richest nation in the world, that we have things such as what happened yesterday.
but then, after seeing a show on discovery that showed a major highway down in south america, i said i'd never complain about our roads again. it was a main thorofare, and was nothing more than a rutted dirt road--and not wide enough to allow comers and goers.

you'd think there would be a rotating plan on road and highway and bridge repairs.

yeah if i were trying to make the argument for that side that's how I would play it, although its sorta bogus because even though the war is a huge cost, the infrastructure has been neglected for decades.

thats true, thats how both sides try to have it. depending on which side you believe, either bush or clinton are responsible for pretty much all thats wrong in the world.:rolleyes:

at least there's a Quarter of A Billion dollars for this:

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feat...ges/index.html

Alaska is the 48th most populated State.

Alaska is the 4th biggest recipient of ($900 Mil +) of funds from the recent Transportation Act.

What a country.

While I normally am a culprit in trying to make arguments for the left side, I'm not trying to do that.

All I'm saying is that, while it's not Bush's fault that this happened because nobody has done anything major forever, it's just going to be a fine place for some to point out how poorly our finances have been managed in the last six and a half years.

Can they blame Bush for the bridge? No. But it will be a great partisan time for blasting a total lack of fiscal responsibility from the party of alleged fiscal responsibility when we get this in our face and go looking for money to make repairs to try to avoid a repeat in the future.

That's all I'm saying. Even I can't blame Bush for everything. Just most.

There is a Democrat named Hughes who says it's Bushs' fault, but no matter! Congress is the one who sets up funding for this stuff, and from what I've heard today...they are much more interested in building new than reparing old bridges. As Danzig said...that bridge is 40yrs old and was never meant to hold all the traffic it did yesterday. The new catchword is "redundancy" which means more than 1 beam supporting a truss. Redundancy allows support to bridge in case 1 beam stresse out, the others can bear up! 80-100,000 bridges in US need to be checked....problem is Fed guidelines and state guidelines are used. Feds will build a bridge for you and pay 80% of cost but they insist on being indemnified...so no lawsuits on Feds!

but i believe i read the other day that alaska has almost NO infrastructure. can't transport if you haven't got the means to do so.
it would be so nice if the federal govt got cut back down to doing federal things, and the states could/would/SHOULD take care of their part.

hey, the built a new sport complex here....too many gravel roads to count, but we have ballfields to replace the ballfields we already had....makes sense to me!

Stevens, a Republican(oh my) is one of the "Kings of Porkbarrell legislation" Yes...I really said that!:eek:

ah, yes, stevens.....

it's why there should be term limits, so that no one can stay up there long enough to get as much power as some of these characters.
the president is limited, why not congressman? the longer they stay, the more deeply entrenched, and the more power they wield. it's not supposed to be that way.

i think the whole senate is nothing but porkers.

political sparing and porkbarreling (earmarks),

what does this body produce that's of any value?

oh yeah the allnight pajama party a few weeks ago was kinda neat.

Was that a Democratic bacchanal?:D

My niece commuted across that bridge every day. Luckily she crossed it a couple hours before the collapse.

I'm all for replacement of all deficient bridges, it's my line of work (i.e. more money for Bigs). Problem is, as others have already stated, someone has to pay for them.

AGREE! It's time for Ted Kennedy to go!!!!!

that man has the biggest head i've ever seen on a human....

thud

narcolepsy by chance? you sure seem to fall out a lot!

True enough...I am easily wobbled.





But DebODeb floors me more than most.