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35W bridge collapse

Ultradog MN

Ultradog MN

Well-known Member
Location
Twin Cities
It was 10 years ago today. I was nearly on it when it happened. I had bought a house just north of Minneapolis and was remodeling it. Was renting a room from a friend of mine in so Mpls and would go up to the house after work every day and get some work done on it. I crossed that bridge both ways. So I stopped by where I was living to grab a sandwich and my friend reminded me it was the 1st of the month and could I give her the rent check. I wrote the check and we chatted for a couple of minutes then I headed out. I was on the freeway just south of the bridge when I saw the huge cloud of dust rise and all the traffic abruptly stopped.
Boy what a tangle trying to get out of there. All the emergency vehicles going every which way, streets were clogged, etc. I took a different bridge across the river and made my way up to my house. It took like 2 hrs to get there where it was normally 20 minutes or so. I stayed till about 11 pm to let the traffic die down then wound my way back home. If my friend hadn't asked me for the rent check I'm certain I would have been on the bridge when it fell.
I had that old saying in my head for a while after that: There but for the grace of God go I.
a167682.jpg
 
yup, I think about stuff like that a lot. Heading out, run back into house for something, come back thinking: Did that delay just change my luck one way or the other? Nice pic, didn't realize there was a lock just upstream from it.
 
That would have been a scary ride when that bridge fell.

At the time there was a similar bridge in St. Cloud, MN that was found to be in even worst shape than the I-35 bridge was just before it fell. What did MN do with the St. Cloud bridge?
 
The bridge in St. Cloud was closed to traffic when it was discovered how bad of shape it was in. Then it was torn down and replaced. A new bridge now crosses the river on hwy 23 in St. Cloud.
 
It doesn't seem like it was that long ago.

For sure, that wasn't your day to die - as you know... it is written.
 
We were in West Virginia when that happened. The wife wanted to go over to the New River Gorge bridge and drive across it. I didn't want to drive that thing,then that one on 35 collapsed. I felt vindicated.
 
Well... the federal government did pay all of the $250 million dollars to replace the bridge ASAP, and the State of Minnesota did save the $1 million to $2 million cost to repair the old bridge. So maybe it was a good... NOPE, I agree it doesn't work any way someone tries to spin it, LOL. That fiasco did inconvenience a lot of people for a year and a quarter and ended the governor's political career.
 

A guy from my hometown of 200 people was killed on it, he was a year younger than me and we rode the bus together to school.
 
Doggy.......ya think that exciting, check out the mile long cable suppension bridge between Tacoma and Gig Harbor, 60-miles south of Seattle. Only one killed was the DOG that wouldn't gitt outta the car before the concrete slabs started falling into Puget Sound. This was just before the start of WW-2. Turned out the bridge was aerodynamic un-stable and WIND made it sway......Dell, at the foot of 14K Mt Rainier
 
"There but for the grace of God go I."

I think that happens a lot more than we realize!

Several years ago on the way back from a Bible study, I was driving a van full of men back to their safe house.

We would usually stop at a fried chicken place on the way back, in and out, back on the road real quick. Well, this night, the service was awful! Took them forever to get the orders out and right.

Left there, running late, they had a curfew. Of course just a ways down the freeway traffic stopped. Finally got to the accident scene, there had been a horrible, multi car, multi fatality accident!

Had we not been delayed...
 
It certainly woke the Feds up. We bridge inspectors have been buried in paperwork ever since then.
 
I had a similar close call. I was ready to enter a state road from a side road with a stop sign when a semi came barreling by just about two seconds before I pulled out.
 
I worked on that bridge one week before it fell, I knew the guy from our company who was killed, and most of people who were working on it. There would have been more workers on the bridge when it fell, but they were getting off the bridge to take a break. Some of the crew went down with it and where hurt, one guy was in coma for several weeks. The project manager was taken by Homeland Security to be questioned (they thought it might be an act of terrorism) He said they drove anywhere they wanted to get where they were going. They drove over curbs, lawns, sidewalks, whatever it took. I am not being a smartazz, but the concrete overlay is not cosmetic. It is standard practice thought out Minnesota and many other states. On new bridges the deck is poured, and later a two inch overlay is poured on top of that. The overlay protects the deck and can be milled off years later and repoured.
 
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