Citizen journalism and the collapse of the I-35W bridge

It's been quite a surreal evening/morning here in Minneapolis. Last night at six pm, in the middle of rush hour, with bumper-to-bumper traffic, I-35W collapsed into the Mississippi River. The entire bridge--I've heard that it's 2,000 feet long--collapsed either into the water or onto the banks below. So far, four have been confirmed dead but that number will go much higher, as there are a lot of cars trapped under water. From what I know, my friends and colleagues are all ok.

The mood today is surreal and slightly sickening. It's a gorgeously hot day and in the diffuse morning light Brian Williams looks very striking as he broadcasts live from the banks of the river. Norm Coleman continues to remind us that he was mayor of St. Paul on 9/11. What a dipshit. And George Bush doesn't know how to pronounce the name of our governor.

The wall-to-wall coverage on the local news has been pretty extraordinary. I-35 crosses the Mississippi sandwiched between many other bridges--both pedestrian and automobile bridges--and as far as I can tell all of them are closed. The best vantage point is from the helicopters floating in place above.

It's weird to be sitting in your apartment at seven pm watching the smoke and the emergency crews surround a very familiar structure. That bridge has always framed for me the best view of downtown Minneapolis. Driving over it often, it's the route I take when I'm heading into the city after a weekend in Duluth. From the span, Minneapolis always looks so pretty and framed perfectly--the glass skyscrapers, the old brick industrial mills, the fadish Guthrie Theater. I drive on that road many times a week.

And I bike under it! There's a major bike path under there, linking downtown with South Minneapolis via the river. Colleagues here at work biked under that thing minutes before it collapsed yesterday.

I work about a mile upriver from the bridge, and this morning on my way to work I biked around the area but couldn't get close. I took some photos, both from the river bank and from the roof of my building, but I'm afraid you won't be able to see much except for some vague twists of greenish steel far off in the distance.

...taken near The Guthrie...

...taken from the roof of my building. The bridge in the background is the 10th Ave. bridge, and the smaller structure in the foreground is a river lock. You can see the wreckage of the bridge in between these two structures. Click on the link to go to flickr and a larger image.

Citizen journalist I am not.

Metroblogging Minneapolis has some intense video of the bridge collapsing.

Here are some youtube clips of the aftermath:

And click here to go to some flickr photos of the scene--much better than mine.

I've got two things to say about this. One, this obviously happened due to the construction on the bridge. They've been resurfacing the bridge for weeks now, and often the lanes are reduced to two or even one lane in each direction. Had there not been construction on the bridge, there would have been a lot more cars in the river. That being said, the construction obviously contributed to it. The construction company has already lawyered up--a lawyer for the company was immediately on the scene and speaking with reporters on behalf of the construction crew. Second, this is gonna fuck up the landscape of the Twin Cities for years. We're talking about the major thoroughfare into the city from the north. Traffic being diverted is already clogging area freeways and local roads. 100,000 cars use I-35W in a day, and they're going to go somewhere. Rebuild it with a lightrail track!