My heart and prayers to those in Minneapolis
 

I wish my Minnesotan neighbors my smiles today.

I wish my Minnesotan neighbors could have my happiness today, my lightheartedness, my joys.

I give my Minnesotan neighbors my sympathy today.

I give my Minnesotan neighbors my love and my hope that they can get through this.

I wish I had written this yesterday but I figured someone else would have started the thread.

I appologize for being a day late....

I hope those of you reading with loved ones in Minnesota have made it safe.

I have not heard about this story as of yet, so a quick search turned up this news; for anyone not in the know like myself:

Death toll rises from Minneapolis bridge collapse

I want to echo Pan's sentiments.

What a horrible event.

I was going to start a thread when it happened Pan, but when I mentioned it in the shoutbox all anyone (cept Snowy) could really comment on was how this was another media event to bombard us with.....and it pissed me off so I did my *thoughts* in a pm to the one person I knew lived there.

My thoughts are also with anyone at all affected by this tragedy

It is sad news indeed, but hopefully it will teach the government officials a lesson in public safety.

Not to get political on this... but this highlights JUST how horribly off-base our government's priorities are.

The State of MN released their report on all the bridges in the state today. There are literally DOZENS that are in as bad shape as the 35W-Mississippi bridge was. That bridge got a score of 50 on its last inspection--there are several bridges just in Hennepin County (where the Twin Cities are) labeled "functionally obsolete" with scores of 3! And we're spending trillions on this Iraq cowboy bullshit while our people are dying because our infrastructure is literally collapsing underneath them.

MAYBE this will be what enrages us enough to actually do something? Maybe? Or maybe we'll watch it all unfold from our air conditioned couches on CNN instead...

rb: maybe it will.
on the other hand:

http://anecdot.ouvaton.org/blog/imag...temps06-06.jpg

praying means nothing to me, so i cant do that.
infrastructure collapse is not a divine act in any event--it has causes and those causes are all too human.
i hope that all turns out well for those impacted directly and indirectly by this.

and i am glad today that i do not watch television.
like i am most days.

Many of the local bridges here in NYC get poor ratings from time to time. They are currently renovating the Manhattan Bridge, after finishing the Williamsburg bridge a number of years ago.

It's important to pay attention to the infrastructure and its' needs and not politic and nickel and dime them.

Our 3rd water tunnel is almost complete, it was started in the 1970s.

You can't pin this kind of stuff on the presidency. It's up to the local governments to take action.

I agree with you Rat but I feel that should be another thread. I wanted to get political about this also but (and I only speak for me) I felt this wasn't the thread to do so.

I started this thread solely to express condolences and give my heartfelt sympathies... I hoped others would also.

Please save the politics for another thread, I assure you I will join you there.

Call me insensitive if you want, but am I the only one who after hearing about this thought of America's obesity epidemic coupled with the popularity of oversized mega SUVs and suspected it might be a contributing factor? I would think we are putting a lot more stress on public infrastructure like roads and bridges. I may be way off base, but we may be putting 2-5 times the weight on roads and bridges these days..

Sorry if that is offensive to anyone. This is truley one of those things you just never imagine happening

Our infrastructure is falling down around our ankles, boys and girls....
What are We going to do about it?

/my father was civil engineer/manager of the Saginaw County Road Commission for 30 plus years[IMG]<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10613890@N08/986711287/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1423/986711287_db862f3759.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="P7210009" /></a>[/IMG]

Yeah... Sorry for heading that way. I'm just really angry about this incident.

I used to live just south of Minneapolis, and I've driven that bridge many times. It's shocking to think of it falling and the loss of life for many and radical change of life for many many that it caused.

i understand the idea pan but you'd think there'd be discussion about this infrastructure stuff sometime, wouldn't you? its neither a small or unimportant issue--but i dont watch tv so dont have the ways this is either being or not being talked about regarding the bridge collapse, so maybe someone who knows more could start another thread?

That's fine and I said start a new thread and I'll be there. I started this thread, as stated previously, to show support, sympathy and caring... NOT TO PLAY POLITICS.

Those that must play politics in a thread meant solely for good intentions... well... to be honest, have their own agendas and show little respect or caring. Especially, when they are free to start a new thread.

I am just explaining again my motives, not picking on Roach.

Some people are not political and may want to post here to show their support. The last thing they may want is to have politics shoved at them.

When Grancey and I lived in Iowa we travelled over that bridge many times to see the Twins play and to get to the Mall of America.

Horror. Sadness. Relief it wasn't us.

I used to drive over and/or walk under that bridge every day on my way to class. I always liked looking at the underside of the bridge and how it was a tangible example of the principles of statics and deformable mechanics i was currently learning about in my classes.

I'm happy that no one i care about got hurt, not that me and mine are necessarily any more important in the grand scheme of things than anyone else. It's just a lot easier looking at a tragedy from the outside than from within.

One of my friends was driving on the bridge right next to it when it collapsed, it was luck that he wasn't underneath it at the time.

A friend of a friend was on the infamous school bus. She broke her leg and some vertebrae in the initial fall, then some bones in her foot kicking debris out of the way when she was trying to get her and the kids to safety.

I tried to go see the aftermath yesterday, but the powers that be have blocked off every possible vantage point - probably because the president is currently photo-opping.

There is probably plenty of blame to go around - the twins postponed the ground breaking ceremony for their brand new, several hundred million dollar stadium because of the collapse. Perhaps they feared a public backlash over an obvious misplacement of priorities - maybe that imposed hennepin county sales tax could have gone to bridges instead of millionaires.

The governor has been notorious vetoer of tax increases, but he's currently calling for a special session to raise taxes. I guess it takes a few deaths and the indefinite closing of a major thoroughfare to admit that sometimes tax increases might be necessary.

The first statement from the local "taxes are bad" lobbying group, the taxpayers league of minnesota, questioned the need to place blame, and they haven't said anything since. A quick, "Ahem, nothing to see here, please move along." from one of the largest local anti-infrastructure funding groups.

Not to be all political or anything, but this is the state of the state in minnesota. It is difficult for me to separate the tragedy from the context, be cause the context is part of the tragedy. We(the average minnesotan) have consistently misplaced our priorities, building stadiums for lackluster sports teams, voting for inflexible fiscal conservative ideologues instead of actual problem solvers, and ignoring problems with less exciting things like bridges, and roads, and schools.


Oh yeah, thanks for the thread, Pan.

Thank you.

This could have been much worse, if the bridge was more heavily populated with cars at the time... but near as I can find (which is difficult) only 6 people lost their lives... 6 in an average of 6500 who die per day in the US.

I'm not saying I have no compassion for these people's deaths or their families- I'm saying that people go overboard with emotion at times, forgetting the other people who die silently and without media attention every day. I care about anyone who has died, but none more than others- and that means not giving special recognition just because it's in a newspaper or TV broadcast.

Just think about the attention this is getting, and how you feel for their loss... then think about someone close to you that you may have lost. Were they less important because their death wasn't a media spectacle?

That's all I'm saying. It's not that they're not important, it's that they're not MORE important than any of the other deaths that occurred that day, and trying to weigh the "importance" or "sadness factor" of one death over another just seems crass to me.

Analog, if I correctly grasp your point, I agree completely. I'm particularly remembering the heat wave in Chicago in 1994 (I think) when literally hundreds of the elderly died and got massive media attention.

There have been 3 heat-related deaths in the city this summer with virtually no media attention. I only know because a friend of mine gets those reports as a part of his job.

I think that with this event, our nature to gather 'round for the fireworks comes to the forefront. When disaster strikes, the crowd is soon to follow, whether it's fire, flood, earthquake or whatever else Mother Nature throws at us. I'm sure that you see this every day, Analog, with the crowds that gather whenever there's an ambulance with its lights on.