Musings of a Virgin

At about 6:05pm, 1st August, the I-35W bridge close to the U of M, that spans the Mississippi River collapsed. This happened during the tail end of rush hour so there was basically bumper to bumper traffic.

Currently the toil is 7 dead, 35 injured, 20 missing and the death toil will definitely increase as the rescue continues through out the night. The numbers might seem small compared to other disasters that have occurred but if you can view the bridge end to end and know just how major a bridge this is, I'm actually surprised and glad that the toil is much lower than I had originally expected when I heard the news.

Make no mistake, this is a MAJOR road/bridge which will adversely affect traffic for however long (probably several years) before the bridge is rebuilt. But right now everyone is focused on recovering and rescuing those still trapped.

My family who are in Singapore actually spent several hours trying to get in touch with me. I was playing Dungeons and Dragons at a friends house and was blissfully unaware of the situation until I got back into my car to drive home.

So if anything has come out of this, I will be exchanging phone numbers with my best friend to our respective parents.

Anyway, my prayers go out to those who are still awaiting news of loved ones and to those who have passed away from what is Minneapolis's worst disaster to date.

Posted by emyln on Wednesday, August 01, 2007 at 9:07 PM | Permalink