Minneapolis Brodge Collapse Update
The Star Tribune is now reporting that nine people are confirmed to have died in the tragedy and that 20 more are missing. About 60 people are injured. Divers had to stop working for several hours during the night but have resumed with the sunrise.
Emergency crews and divers have resumed their recovery and clean up efforts at the scene of the Interstate 35W bridge that collapsed during rush hour Wednesday evening.
Mayor R.T. Rybak said this morning that recovery continued through the night, but that diving was stopped for several hours because of dangerous conditions for divers who were working in dark, amid fallen concrete and other debris.
Diving has resumed, he said.
As the sun rose this morning at least two patrol boats were visible on the river south and east of the lock and dam and just uptream from the collapsed bridge.
Many rescuers who'd been at scene as late as 2 a.m. were expected back at 6 a.m. for an operations briefing. Then, they were going to go back onto the water.
An hour before sunrise, nearly a dozen giant lights mounted on the Cedar Avenue and surviving parts of I-35W bridge illuminated river surface.
Ed Morrisey reports that another newspaper is reporting that there may have been warning signs that the bridge had structural problems.
Normally, in the wake of a catastrophe, the details become clear only slowly and fitfully. Last night we heard that the 35W bridge had passed all of its inspections and that the collapse completely surprised everyone. Today, the Pioneer Press reports that inspectors had warned of a problem with this particular bridge, although the state overall had done an excellent job in bridge maintenance:
Bridge inspectors had noted structural problems over the years in the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River that collapsed Wednesday evening, but it was unclear whether obvious warning signs had been ignored. …
In 2005, inspectors from the Minnesota Department of Transportation deemed the bridge "structurally deficient," in data submitted to the Federal Highway Administration's National Bridge Inventory.
The bridge, Ed Notes, had a 500-foot clear span with no supports. I'm not a civil engineer, but a 500 foot span seems rather long. (Here's a site with a simple explanation of various bridge types for anyone interested. There is bridge design software for the West Point Bridge Design contest that can be downloaded and installed available here.)
