Major Bridge Collapses in Minneapolis

[shreddermon]

I'm just waiting for the "It's GW's fault"... It's bound to happen, and one of our Representatives is already headed there - he's blamed it on BOTH Bush's - interesting...Clinton had 8 years to fix it.

Someone should get blamed for it. But it would be retarded to blame it on Bush (either one) or Clinton. Transportation infrastructure investment is primarily determined at the state government level. Sure, there's a lot of Federal aid for transportation, but the Feds give states pretty broad latitude in terms of how they can choose to spend the money.

If anyone gets blamed, it should be at the state govt level - the governor and legislature. But, generally speaking, both the Feds and all states have been way lax in their investments for core aging infrastructure, like roads and bridges. Our elected officials would rather spend much needed tax dollars on their bulls**t pet pork projects and throw money at human services with no real quality of life gains, than keep people safe with roads and bridges in states of good repair. Everyone's quoting the sound bite of the bridge being rated "structurally deficient", right? If you only knew how common that kind of rating is across the USA.

...Sad, but we're often a bunch of f'n sheep electing these chumps over and over again to get the same shitty service. It's like we keep leaving heavy tips for a crappy waitress at the local diner over and over again, but can't figure out why the service never improves. Duh.

[Pigsnatcher]

I know the tolls aren't in yet but I can't beleive there aren't more dead. I couldn't imagine what it must have been like.

[scotty]

I feel bad for the families. We had a causeway collapses in 2001. It was about 2:30am when it happened. Just in time for leaving a club. Very sad.

http://www.billycalzada.com/causeway.html

[danastas]

Check out this article:

http://www.startribune.com/10204/story/1339911.html

We have misplaced priorities as a people.

[skorb]

this is really bad. bumper to bumper traffic on the bridge when it fell? there will be WAY more casualties than these early rpts. this is only what they know for certain. there were upwards of 50 vehicles in the river alone, and then there are parts of it that were over land and other roads and rr tracks.

frankly I'm surprised this kind of thing does not occur more often.

[Nuclear Vampire]

Minneapolis is the closest major US city to me, so MANY Winnipeggers travel there regularly. I've only been once. Everyone here knows that bridge. My brother just got back from St Paul on Monday after seeing the Warped and SOTU Tours. He drove across that bridge a couple of times during his stay there. My thoughts go out to the families of those who lost their lives or got hurt.

[missionguitars1]

Man, just off the phone with my dad. They were coming back from a wedding in Thunder Bay, and had just crossed the bridge 5 minutes before it collapsed...given the fact all his friends are dropping like flies (he's 79), he just shrugged it off and said "guess it just wasn't my day".

I guess people must get more comfortable with death as they get older - the idea of going that way scares the sh*t out of me!

[RacerX]

Well, get used to this...with the state of our infrastructure across the whole country, this is only the beginning.

[political aside]Gee how much infrastructure repair could we have done with all the billions being spent you know where
[/political aside]

[Axewielder]

Well, get used to this...with the state of our infrastructure across the whole country, this is only the beginning.

Yeah, also get used to journalists using the catch phrase "America's crumbling infrastructure" every 10 seconds for the next year.

[RacerX]

http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...rastructure%22

[chrisolson]

[political aside]Gee how much infrastructure repair could we have done with all the billions being spent you know where
[/political aside]

There's plenty blame to go around, but of course, it will be deemed that ALLLLLLL this came into play over the last 7 years... Just like NOLA -- they never realized that city could flood before 2000 - sheesh...

Fuck the politics - take care of the people. The Left and Right share the blame here...

[danastas]

Taking care of the people = $$$ and we have a big deficit.

What's the answer?

[chrisolson]

The war will eventually end. Again, plenty of blame to go around.

[OnlineStageGear]

I bet they are gonna find some kind of flaw that isn't visable with the naked eye when doing inspections.

Matt

[chrisolson]

I bet they are gonna find some kind of flaw that isn't visable with the naked eye when doing inspections.

Matt

They already have. The bridge have a number of "structural deficiencies", but none serious enough to cause a closure.