35W Bridge Collapse Open Thread
My initial reactions:
1. I found out via Twitter. Got about five in a row, within 30 seconds. That’s crazy. And pretty cool.
2. Sick to my stomach. Horrible. A major bridge collapsed and people are dead. The Mississippi River and the various bridges are such a part of this area’s identity and landscape, and it’s got a big ugly tragedy associated with it.
3. Not to minimize the tragedy of people having died, but at this point, I’m surprised that more people didn’t die. They’ll still fish some folks out of the river, but considering how packed that bridge could have been under normal rush hour non-construction delay/reroute traffic conditions, it could have been a lot worse. It’s amazing that the bridge collapsed the way it did, with the center portion dropping straight down, instead if it cracking in the middle and the whole thing sloping.
4. This makes budget scrabbles over stadiums seem pretty silly, don’t it?
Also, I’m amazed that all 60 of those kids on that bus survived.
I first heard about it while dining at Red Lobster around 6:30. The entire restaurant gathered around TVs in the bar area and my family from Iowa was calling frantically. My boss asked our entire workplace of 200 to all e-mail our HR manager to check in that we’re okay. Now watching our local news feeds on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC is truely surreal. MN Twins game went into extra innings, which is really lucky. Erica, you’ve done a fantastic job with the liveblogging. Truely what makes Metroblogging unique!
I ran the Great River Relay last year. Got an email from those guys last night about 9:30 sending their condolences. The race is scheduled to run in a few weeks, I believe. I don’t think they’ll have to do any re-routing, but that was nice (and totally unexpected) to hear from them.
We need your help to gather as many links as possible related to the bridge collapse, including photos and videos. See the wiki here:
http://pages.e-democracy.org/35W
For as much as I’ve driven on and under that bridge and seen all the pictures, it occurs to me that I’m having a hard time really appreciating the scale of this. What does a highway really look like laying in the middle of a river? I’m definitely going to have to go see it to really get it.
“2. Sick to my stomach. Horrible. A major bridge collapsed and people are dead. The Mississippi River and the various bridges are such a part of this area’s identity and landscape, and it’s got a big ugly tragedy associated with it.”
I had the same feeling when I heard the news here in Sacarmento. I wish the city and bridge a speedy recovery.
what I just blogged, based on Erica M’s post about how she learned about the collapse via Twitter, about the role Twitter could play in emergency communications during disasters!
I’ve now driven into downtown twice since this happened. Both times I looked at the Minneapolis skyline and felt intensely relieved that it was all still there.
Not sure on the mechanism of this connection, but I’m feeling really in love with this place lately. Part of it’s due to the awesomeness of my personal life (relative to the previous 29 years), but I’m also feeling very connected to Minneapolis right now.
The tragic but spectacular collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis, this week, is one more piece of evidence of the accelerating general decline of the USA as a nation. The I-35 bridge is just one among over 70,000 bridges nationwide deemed “structurally deficient” by inspecting civil engineers. Many parts of the 74,000-kilometer US national highway system are between 40 and 60 years old, but fixing the problem is another story. Pouring tens of billions of dollars into renewal would mean unpopular tax hikes – notably on fuel. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives much of the nation’s infrastructure near-failing grades and estimates that 1.6 trillion dollars over five years are needed to bring it to “a good condition.” Several of the San Francisco Bay are bridges are of similar age and condition as the collapsed Minneapolis bridge.
As a society we have made the conscious and deliberate decision to spend our tax dollars on tax breaks for the wealthiest 1/2 percent of citizens instead of repairing and maintaining our nationwide infrastructure. We have made this decision in order to pave the way for privatizing our commons, including bridges, highways, as well as national parks, forests, and public lands.
This same theme is reflected by the president’s decision to veto the bill to provide health insurance to American children while at the same time continuing to spend $ 12 billion a month on no-bid, cost plus, exclusive contracts to defense contractors for goods and services NOT delivered in 80% of cases. It is reflected, as well, by the continuing relentless effort to privatize our Social Security system by turning it over to Wall Street banking interests who plan to drain the system of its assets, then declare bankruptcy and walk away, just as they have done with 1000s of private pension plans.
The robber baron capitalists who are stealing this nation’s wealth with the help of a captive government, both a Republican administration and the Republican Party, and most importantly, a thoroughly pro corporate, anti-labor, anti-consumer Supreme Court.
These interests have been able to succeed on a spectacular scale by taking over and consolidating the mass media, both TV and radio broadcasting and newspaper publishing into the ownership of 5 or 6 corporate conglomerates, thus controlling the information available to the American public, 85% of which gets most or all of its news and information about the world they inhabit from these sources. They have successfully turned American culture into an anti-intellectual celebrity culture which is deeply concerned about the lives of its pop stars and is actively engaged in voting for the latest American Idol while turning its back on participation in the process of governance. To a significant degree, they have “dumbed down” average Americans to shun thinking rationally about their own economic interests in favor of “hot button’ issues such as gay marriage and abortion and to foster a distrust and rejection of science in general and evolution specifically in favor of popular mythology like creationism and “The Rapture” which will transport the chosen few instantly to heaven, leaving the rest of us behind on a devastated, doomed planet.
Under the appealing slogan of “leaving no child behind” we have degraded public education by eliminating the teaching of history, social studies, and government (what we used to call “Civics class”), art and music, by refocusing education to preparation for taking a nationwide, one-size-fits-all test, and popular team sports.
With the help of a corp[orate mass media, Madison Avenue has convinced most Americans that government is never the solution but that it is always the problem. That the idea of a “commons” is a quaint, unrealistic anachronism, and that “private enterprise” (dressed up in the trappings of largely nonexistent small businesses, but in reality monopolistic trans-national giant corporations)
is the most efficient means for achieving any and every goal.
While militarily the United States is first in the world as a weapons producer and spends more than all other nations combined, on its military, our difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan attest to the questionable strength and effectiveness of our military force. We also leas the world in the proportion of our citizenry that we have imprisoned. But in other areas of endeavor we are a long way from being “number One.” In general health, longevity, and infant mortality we lag behind 36 other nations. In education we lag behind 17 other nations. In industrial output we lag behind at least 3 or 4 other nations if we regard the European Union as one industrial entity. In spite of our delusion of being “USA – Number One,” we lag behind a dozen nations in scientific research and technology innovation. In mean income levels we lag behind at least 5 European nations. In general standard of living we lag behind 8 other nations.
In overall wealth, we will soon slide from number 3 to number 4 or 5 position.
The “Great American Century” is behind us us to be sure. Regardless of the dreams of empire still dreamed by members and followers of the Project for a New American century, and the TV inspired delusion of average Americans, the 21st century will witness “The Great American Decline.” It didn’t have to be that way, but the PNAC dreamers’ own foolishness, ignorance, arrogance and hubristic inability to think logically have condemned us all (except for the wealthiest 1 or 2% of us) to this now inevitable decline. The damage that 27 years of anti-government, anti-social, anti-labor and anti-consumer neoconservatism/neoliberalism economic, social and environmental policies have wreaked upon our society, our infrastructure, our economy and our environment is so deep, so extreme that it can never be undone. We are are a decade or more past the “tipping point,” the point of no return. From now on, the slide towards degradation and chaos can and will only accelerate.
Please do not think this is an excessively gloomy assessment. There is still time time to slow down this devolutionary trend. If everyone suddenly awakens from their smug, self satisfied stupor, from their delusion that all is well with the world, that we are still “Number One,” we could arrest our rush towards chaos. But for that to happen, it will take extraordinary and unprecedented effort from all of you.