2:51 PM Fri, Aug 03, 2007 | Permalink
Frank Mungeam
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By David Krough, kgw.com Producer
Made a trip to my hometown this weekend for a family reunion. Just happens to also be the site of the biggest news story in the country right now, the Minneapolis 35W bridge collapse.
Anyone who knows the area realizes that this is the main artery into downtown from about three different angles.
I traveled it dozens of times a week when I lived in St. Paul and at teh University of Minnesota. I snuck in through a back route at around noon Friday, the site is directly across the river from the university, an area I know well from driving through backroads and delivery access points working for UM media.
Approaching the area, the sound of helicopters was deafening as local news, police and federal military type choppers took off and landed constantly.
Every access point to a close view of the recovery effort was police taped off. I finally managed to hike down near the river after a few tries.
People had thrown rose petals into the river as a memorial. It was quite a touching sight with the twisted wreckage in the background, as the petals slowly drifted down with the Mississippi current.
Throngs of people were all over around the scene, too. I overheard one person responding to their friend's complaint about the poor viewpoint: "Hey, it's a bridge disaster, not the Eiffel Tower."
True, but you can't look away. As a feat of sheer destruction, it's an awesome sight. One can't deny the fascination, it's basic human curiosity. And a terrible tragedy for those who lost loved ones.
Commuters here seem to be quite patient with it all - for now. But when the dust settles, the economic-transportation effects of the collapse will be the most lasting for locals trying to get from point A to point B.
I live in St. Paul and have been away during this tragedy. I can't imagine what it must look like. I also agree that when the dust settles, it's hard to believe that a major interstate in an already crowded metro area is gone. This is a horrible situtation for everyone involved.
Just read your blog about your trip to MN and thought I would just throw in some information that has yet to come up in any news report that I've seen.
My wife and I just moved to Oregon from the Minneapolis area last year after being there for 22 years. My daily work did not take that way but anytime I needed to go to the airport or for any need of going from the Anoka area south we took I35W.
That bridge was always rumblely sounding when you went across but that was mostly due to the condition of the road surface.
A few years ago (I could do a Google research and find exactly when) MNDOT decided to try an experiment on the north approach to the bridge for traffic heading south. They installed automatic deicing spray nozzles embedded in the curb side of the roadway with sensors implanted in the roadway to detect ice. When ice was detected a chemical deicer was sprayed out onto the roadway keeping the bridge free of ice. I do not believe these deicers extended much past the first sectional span of the bridge starting at the north end. But, traffic would obviously pick up the deicing solution and carry it forward as they traveled south across the bridge and some of this chemical would get spread along the way, probably all the way across over a period of time. Now what I remember MNDOT saying about the chemical was it was suppose to be nicer to cars compared to what is used everywhere else during the winter on roadways in Minnesota.
So my curiosity is peaked more than a little that this may eventually be found by the NTSB to be one of the leading causes in support failure if in fact the deicing chemical was found to be more corrosive than originally expected.
Just some food for thought.
But my wife and I find it hard to look at those pictures without feeling a lot of pain and hurt for those involved. This was my wife's path to work for many of those years up until about 3 years before we moved when she was moved from downtown to our home for a work-from-home environment. Still she had to go into town once a month for meetings.
David