I-35 Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis

[Aea]

Our bridges, roads, etc are deteriorating all over the country.

We're building roads over there, so we don't have to build them over here.

My thoughts go out to everybody effected by this tragedy, even if I did make a political jab out of it.

 

[Lixivial]

Not to take anything away from the Red Cross... but had their response time been any thing greater than 30 seconds, we should all be very concerned.

I think we have to mention the civilian volunteers as well; many people came from nearby homes to help pull people out of the river as well.

Yes, I don't know why/how I could have forgotten them. I heard of some stories of some college kids going to or from DinkyTown turn around just after they passed the bridge and diving in the water helped load ambulances, no questions asked. Pretty amazing.

My thoughts go out to everybody effected by this tragedy, even if I did make a political jab out of it.

That's OK. I've seen animations where people photoshopped one part of the collapsed highway having sex with another part of the collapsed highway.

And also another macro'd image where it took a picture of a school bus hanging on the edge, and applied a spoof of the bus song, "Wheels on the bus go round and round." So yours really wasn't tactless in the slightest.

 

[Pani]

We're building roads over there, so we don't have to build them over here.

My thoughts go out to everybody effected by this tragedy, even if I did make a political jab out of it.

It is hard NOT to think about the political. Alternet did an interesting piece on it today. I didn't link it because the article is political and people are still in a fragile state of mind. Still, it is something we have to think about. Plug "America's infrastructure" into Google! Scary how much else is at risk.

 

[IJ Reilly]

A great deal has been made (especially in the Twin Cities media, evidently) about how this bridge scored only 50 out of 100 points in the federal system for assessing the structural integrity of bridges. The implication is that a 50 score means that the bridge is structurally deficient and should not have been in use. This isn't really true -- thousand of bridges in the U.S. score in this range. The real issue apparently is the inspection process. Clearly, the inspectors missed a critical structural flaw in this bridge. It probably should have been rated far lower.