35W Bridge / Minnesota

[seafarer62]

To All:

A couple of you have sent private messages about the 35W bridge collapse in Minnesota. Thank you for your friendship and concern. Actually, all week I was out of town in Madison, Wisconsin on a training assignment but watched in horror on CNN and FoxNews from a distance.

I had some tense moments as my 18-year old son was playing with his band in Minneapolis that night. We live about 25 miles of the Twin Cities. He had told his step-mother that he was going to stay overnight with friends and not be home. After the bridge collapsed, I tried to reach him on his cellphone but only got his voicemail. He didn't check in with me until the next morning. My God I told him, if there are 50 cars in the Mississippi River, why didn't you call me or your stepmom to let us know you weren't one of them?? He actually took a different way into Minneapolis but how we were to know? Hope he grows up soon.

Anyway, we have a major recovery and traffic mess in the Twin Cities. There is major construction on other parts of the freeway system and this tragedy will affect us for probably several years. I lived in that area for five years as a graduate of the Univ. of Minnesota. We were on the bridge about a week ago and noted the road work going on as we passed through. I have used that bridge hundreds if not thousands of times. We would have taken that bridge on the way to the Sept. 22 Gordon concert which is about 2 miles further south. Gordon's truck driver will need to use an alternate route when they pack up in Minneapolis and head for Duluth next month.

I keep thinking of our favorite poet and his line from "I'll Tag Along."

"This time tomorrow we might all be packed and gone. I believe it's best, to carry on."

On behalf of fellow Minnesotans, thank you for your thoughts and prayers. Let's hope good comes from this and our governments become more serious about the infrastructure issues in this country.

John /Forest Lake, MN

[RJ]

I went down and saw it last evening..
the collapsed span is enormous in person..
almost 1/2 mile I'd say..
it was an intense and sobering experience as you'd imagine..
The Stone Arch Bridge has become a kind of church..
as has the new Guthrie, and the University Avenue bridge..
thousands of people there 7:00 Sunday night..
lots of people standing there taking pictures on cellphones and cameras, talking on cellphones describing it to someone who's not there, pointing, some just staring off into an empty space where there used to be a bridge, with open mouths..
some people were crying..
feels like ground zero..
35W is eerie deadly quiet..

[louisemnnpls]

Was down there this afternoon. I used to work at the Sorority right on 10th and University. I made my way through the people and just sat on the steps of the Sorority house for who knows how long.......just staring. It was all ao sur-real! There was even police tape all around the houses, so just sat there on the edge of the step. People were walking but almost no one seemed to be talking, or maybe I was just in a trance. The "stone arch bridge" was so crowded that I didn't even try to go there today. My sister just said that it does't matter where you live, you never know what the next moment will bring. When I got home, just turned on the TV and heard there was a huge mine explosion in (is it Utah?). To fellow Minnesotans.....and all of you. I love you. Be safe, and God Bless.

[RJ]

The most impressive thing to me wasn’t the bridge in the river, the crumpled cars, the mangled steel, or the vehicles sitting there perched mere feet from having dropped over the edge of doom etc..
but from the 4th Street bridge looking north on the now empty and quietly still I-35W..
feels post-apocalyptic..
just a broken down concrete freeway now..
eerie deadly quiet..
I would recommend that all Minnesotans go to the site as soon as possible..
not to "see it" necessarily (there's really not allot of it you can see (the corner of University Avenue and the 10th Avenue bridge is perhaps the best vantage point ) at least of the spots where I ventured))..
but to pay a certain reverence and tribute and honor to those unlucky who were killed, to those who survived them, and to those injured..
and because this is an historical moment in the place where we live and work..
and because soon we're going to find those that are missing, and then remove the debris, and clean up the site and begin looking ahead..
and then we'll stop downtown from time to time in the months and years ahead and watch the new bridge go up in stages..
and we will have gone through it..
and one day many years from now somebody will be driving (my hope of course is riding in a light rail train instead) and say to a child, "See this bridge comin up here?.. Well one day, a long time ago.."..
etc..
and those will be better days; better times..
for Minnesota..

[ August 09, 2007, 14:01: Message edited by: RJ ]

[louisemnnpls]

RJ,

You said that so well. Amen.