Freeway bridge over Mississippi River in Minneapolis collaps

[T-Bird76]

Its on the news now, doesn't look good at all, reports of ppl in the water, certainly they're will be seriously injured and dead.

http://www.foxnews.com

[emshighway]

Would hate to be with the engineering firm doing the road construction. They are going to be chewed apart.

[hiss srq]

Would hate to be with the engineering firm doing the road construction. They are going to be chewed apart.
Understatement of the year I would say.

[PhilDernerJr]

Some of the early footage they showed actually showed what had to be a dead body laying on the ground.

This is just horrible.

I'd hate to speculate, but anyone thinking terrorism?

[stuart schechter]

Phil, not terrorism according to DHS and one dead.

[hiss srq]

That honestly passed my mind Phil when I first saw it. The pictures are terrifying to say the least.

[Smartass Flyboy]

So far I've accounted for about 1/2 of the friends I still have there. My buddy Brian is looking at a very loooong week ahead of him as he is a Transit Supervisor for Metro Transit. They are putting something like 50 extra busses on the routes out of the North side and burbs for tomorrow. I have to tell you it is a miracle that so far only 7 dead. I have spent many an hour stuck in the 35W stop & crawl, their rush hours are worse than ours, I was expecting to hear dozens dead. I used to bike that path you can see in many of the CNN shots several times each week. Still waiting to hear from friend who is a conductor on the UP. The train under the bridge is on I believe a BNSF line, but it is used by all 4 class 1's operating in the cities. I would expect NW will be even more short staffed than usual tomorrow as many of their staff at MSP and SOC live in northen burbs.

[emshighway]

No terrorism indicated. Just speculating put I think with construction, weight loads to two lanes and not distributed, the train passing below, the vibrations reached the threshold and something gave. Once one section gave the rest just became a domino effect

[Smartass Flyboy]

There is a security video on CNN.com that shows the actual collapse ad it appears your speculation is spot on. It looks exactly like you described. Looks like a classic structura failure in the middle that jus took everything down with it.

[NIKV69]

Would hate to be with the engineering firm doing the road construction. They are going to be chewed apart.




Yep, if it's found they are at fault goodbye to that company. Barring terrorism or design not much else it could be.

[emshighway]

There is a security video on CNN.com that shows the actual collapse ad it appears your speculation is spot on. It looks exactly like you described. Looks like a classic structura failure in the middle that jus took everything down with it.

I didn't see that video before but it just verifies my points. The bridge appears to be a truss design which is very susceptible to positive and negative forces. Fire Departments are very cautious of truss roofs as in a fire once supports are compromised the whole roof can come down without warning. Truss designs are often used to maximize internal space without have support columns in the middle. Often people use the girder space as storage or add/remove roofing without consideration to the overall original design specifications.

It appears the middle section gave way then the other section lost the sideways stability and just came down like a house of cards.

Just look around any bridge in the city and you will see much deterioration. These structures need to be maintained or events such as this will continue to happen.

[PhilDernerJr]

I read that there are 20-30 people still missing.

It's sad to also read how families of the mising are clinging to hope when it's almost definite that all the missing are dead.


Jessica Engebretsen, waiting near the bridge for news of her mother, asked people to pray for the missing. Her sister, Anne, struggled to hold back the tears as she described her mom, Sherry Engebretsen, as "a fighter,,,She'll make it, she's a strong woman, she's gonna come back home," Anne told CNN.