Breaking: Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis

KSTP TV 5/ME | 8/1/07 | Me

[brityank]

Here you go, Don -- scary memories:

[Blue Jays]

Condolences to the families of those killed. Best wishes for a speedy recovery for those injured. I know of one of the recovery divers heading to the scene. What a horrible tragedy.

[ThePythonicCow]

The major portion of the city of Minneapolis is South of the river

That seems upside down to me. I thought that the fallen 35W bridge was between Bloomington (north of the bridge) and Burnside (south of the bridge), both south of downtown Minneapolis.

[spyone]

This bridge broke in 5 or 6 places in a cascading time frame. Excuse me, but I am suspicious.

[spunkets]

"Fatigue occurs when metal is stressed beyond it’s elastic limit. Bend or stress metal, let go, and it returns to it’s original shape, fine. Bend or stress it too far, deform it permanently, and internal issues start to cascade. Internal means “hard to see”."

Metal fatigue is a microscopic process of atomic rearrangement, that always occurs at stress levels below the elastic limit. No macroscopic changes are discernable. Normally it's well below the elastic limit. The elastic limit is always higher than the stress at failure when metal fatigue occurs.

Metal that is stressed beyond it's elastic limit at RT is simply cold worked. In the case of this bridge, cracks were noted. This is mild steel, so those cracks were not likely due to corrosion. Those cracks indicate the fatigue limit of that steel had been reached, and that result could be applied to the rest of the same steel in the rest of the structure. That is the new ultimate limit to be used for that steel. Values for new steel no longer apply and an effective elastic limit doesn't exist, because with fatigue, it's probable that the elastic limit is the same as the ultimate limit. ie, the steel will not bend, it fractures.

[Straight Vermonter]

I hate to do this, but public school was created to teach immigrants English.

Yeah that and to convert the Catholic immigrants to Protestantism.

[tina07]

as mentioned before, better than having all the people at the game back on the roads...

[Straight Vermonter]

I can't find any pictures that show where the other "pillar" from that end of the bridge ended up. In the water?

[Hunble]

Use Google Earth and type in these exact coordinates:

44 58 42.62 N
93 14 42.56 W

[On the Road to Serfdom]

Your thinking of Burnsville south of the river. That is the Minnesota River not the Mississippi River. This bridge over the Mississippi next to the U of M in downtown Minneapolis just north of I94.

[BurbankKarl]

There is a video of the collapse...perhaps it will be aired tomorrow.

[Hunble]

You and I are seeing the same images.

However, using Google Earth, I am even more convinced that the outflow of the lock is what eventually caused this bridge to fall.

My wife and I have been over that bridge thousands of times, and we were absolutly shocked today. My God, that could have happened to us!

[ThePythonicCow]

Aha - perhaps my mistake - looks like there are two rivers that 35W crosses over, once over the Minnesota River, south of Minneapolis, and once again over the Mississippi River, to the northeast of downtown.

I'm guessing now that you're right - that this is the bridge over the Mississippi that fell.

P.S. - looks like "On the Road to Serfdom" has already corrected my post and confirmed my error - thanks!

[Straight Vermonter]

This gives a good view of the lock relative to the bridge.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=44+58+42.62+N+93+14+42.56+W&ie=UTF8&ll=44.9785,-93.245564&spn=0.000749,0.001695&t=k&z=19&om=0

[JennysCool]

Thank you for all your hard work posting those photos!

[SheLion]

There are certainly some cameras of some type in the area of the bridge. If so, it would be prudent to look at the tapes, if any, to see what was on the bridge at the time of collapse. That would help the rescue/recovery teams in looking for specific vehicles. The sooner they do this, the better. I hope that no one was killed, but that may be the case. It would be a miracle if there were no fatalities.

I've always had this vision of two terrorist idiots strapping on their famous bomb belts.  One would climb underneath the bridge from one end and the other one would climb or edge their way from the other end, until they pretty much met in the middle.

As soon as there was high traffic, they would set their bombs off.  This vision haunts me.  And now, this bridge is bringing it all back.

I pray I am wrong.  But watching the news, there seems to be a lot of spin going on.  Excuses, if you know what I mean.

Like, how could a jack hammer bring down the whole bridge.  One guy gave a LOT of spin on this one.

Well, if it was a terrorist attack, our government will not tell us.  They don't want to create "mass panic" you know.

eck!

[Danette]

Look in 1659. They’re both there

[Danette]

You’re welcome. Goodnight, All.

[SheLion]

This bridge broke in 5 or 6 places in a cascading time frame. Excuse me, but I am suspicious.

A LOT of us are!!!!

[Hunble]

Good image and exactly what I was seeing with Google Earth.

It would have helped if the MSN would have provided this basic orientation, so that people could place their images into some form of context.