Actually, if you're American, look on the news.

Here

SSOCIATED PRESS

UPDATED AT 9:30 P.M.: MINNEAPOLIS — At least three people were killed and an unknown number of others injured tonight when a four-lane bridge over the Mississippi River collapsed, sending cars, concrete and twisted metal into the river below.

The four-lane Interstate 35W bridge, which spanned the river between Minneapolis and St. Paul, collapsed about 6:05 p.m., during evening rush hour today. Kristi Rollwagen, a spokeswoman for the city's department of emergency preparedness, said at least three people died in the tragedy.

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It wasn't immediately clear how many people or vehicles were involved in the collapse, but witnesses said at least 20 vehicles were involved. CNN quoted witnesses as saying the number could be as high as 50.

Survivors were being pulled onto the banks of the Mississippi River while rescue workers began a frantic search to determine whether more victims are trapped in cars that plunged into the river after a bridge collapsed. Minneapolis hospitals reported several victims had been brought in for treatment, some of them critically injured.

Christine Hill, spokeswoman for Hennepin County Medical Center, told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that the hospital had treated 16 people who arrived by ambulance. A hospital issued an alert orange for all available staff to be called in.

"We are ready to go with this type of thing," Hill said. "Right now we're doing the best we can."

Minnesota newspapers said many of the vehicles on the bridge were carrying fans to the Minnesota Twins baseball game. The collapse sent vehicles, tons of concrete and twisted steel and power lines crashing into the water.

Janet Stately, of Minneapolis, told the St. Paul Pioneer Press she was driving southbound on Interstate 35W from Duluth with her daughter, Brianne. Stately said she exited onto University Avenue just minutes before reaching the bridge. On the overpass, she heard the cracking of the structure and smoke rising from below, the newspaper said on its Web site.

"I was driving the car and I screamed when I heard it crack," Stately said. "It's like it went in slow motion. I heard the crack and I saw the cars going straight in. There was not a space between the cars on that bridge. I tried to tell people on the road if you can swim get down there and help."

"I just saw concrete dust and I don't know if it was water flying up in the air," Stately said. "And the noise, I don't even know how to describe it to you."

A tractor-trailer caught fire, and flame and black smoke billowed into the sky. The truck and a school bus clung to one slanted slab, while at least eight cars and a truck were submerged in the river.

Stately told the St. Paul newspaper that she was driving near the school bus when the bridge fell. "I kept screaming there's kids on that bus," she said during a interview. "I just said, 'That bus is going to go in.' I hope those kids are OK."

Jeff Pearson, an official with First Student Inc., confirmed the bus trapped on the bridge was a First Student bus, apparently carrying a church youth group. His understanding was that all the kids got out but he wasn't sure of the extent of any injuries, the St. Paul newspaper reported.

The bridge was under construction and had a Minnesota Department of Transportation crew working on it at the time of the collapse, Lt. Amelia Huffman, Minneapolis police spokeswoman, told the Pioneer Press.

She said it wasn't clear how many cars were on the bridge, "but it's certainly a substantial number,'' she said.

Local television stations captured video of injured people being carried up the riverbank. Dozens of rescue vehicles are on the scene, and divers are in the water, newspaper reports said.

Some people were stranded on parts of the bridge that aren’t completely in the water. Early reports said shipping on the portion of the Mississippi River also had been halted because of the tons of concrete and cars in the water.

Gregory Wernick Sr., of Rockford, Ill., drove over the bridge shortly before the collapse. He stopped to get a drink nearby and heard commotion so he went back.

“I figure I crossed about 10 minutes before it happened,” he said. “That’s just too close to call.”

He was standing about 200 feet away on top of a parking ramp with large group of people.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said.

The arched bridge, which was built in 1967, rises about 64 feet above the river.
Workers have been repairing the 40-year-old bridge's surface as part of improvements along that stretch of the interstate, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported on its Web site.

Paul McCabe, spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Minneapolis, said the FBI has responded to the collapsed bridge to offer assistance and conduct any investigation that proves necessary. But he said there was “no reason at this time to believe there’s any nexus to terrorism.”

When I saw this on TV I was like, whoa... I mean, I get nervous driving over bridges... so that fear is actually real?

Discuss. :shock:

I cross bridges often and don't get scared.

I think the media has us trained to fear things like that by publicizing freak accidents.

Queen Fool -- They have to publicize it. Really, the choices are: Rock, or Hard Place.
Either they publicize it and get in trouble for that, or the DON'T publicize it and get in trouble for that!
One or the other. I'd prefer to know what happened.


It's terrible.
I feel so sorry for all of those people, such a terrible thing to happen. The scariest thing is that they don't know how many people were on that bridge, so they have no way of knowing...

The chances of something like happening is very, very slim. I don't apply this kind of accident to my driving or otherwise every day habits...but I do care for the people injured or otherwise and wish them healing.

i know is it US wide news? i live in MN when i found out i was like wow because its not just a small part that fell it was a big part.

my mom was worried tho because my dad uses that bridge allot a guess and he wasent home yet. but he was fine he wasent even on the bridge.

• @Cinnamonmiko: I think what Queen Fool means is that the media sensationalizes events. There's a difference between reporting the facts and throwing around all sorts of speculations or making you worry that your bridge may be next. The latter draws more viewers and as a result, more advertisers for revenue...
  
  As for the event, when I read this, all I could think was oh my god......that is absolutely terrifying. I just can't understand how a bridge could just break like that. I feel sorry for the people involved in the accident. :(

Ugh, that makes me so scared,
I'm paranoid and twitchy about driving (and everything else) enough as is. D:

Poor people.
I bet the view while they tumbled to their deaths/critical injuries was (literally) breathtaking...? o_o;

>_< makes me feel bad. And terrified.
of everything. D:

I realize that this happens freakly, but just even considering it... it's a long stretch of bridge and there is roads under it...

And it happened during rush hour..

It's really sad.

I was just watching the Mothman Prophecies on tv the other night :shock:

Weird.

D= I was just watching that on the news.

I have a fear of bridges, for that exact reason.
God, it's horrible.

• ;-; I knew that this would happen one day. Dx What if something like that happened to the Golden Gate Bridge. I'm very sad for the families and people who were killed or injured in that unfortunate event

Originally Posted by [Detachable penis

]D= I was just watching that on the news.

I have a fear of bridges, for that exact reason.
God, it's horrible.

xD I fear walking over those steel grates in the sidewalk for that reason.
You know, the grid ones where you can see below. ; ;

:shock:
Wow. That's frightening. My dad is (silently) scared of driving over bridges.
I just look over them, and go,

"Omigish lookatthelake. <3"

But, that is a terrible tragedy. There must have been a lot of parents injured...

Originally Posted by neur0mancer

xD I fear walking over those steel grates in the sidewalk for that reason.
You know, the grid ones where you can see below. ; ;

I really dislike going over those grates also... they scare me so much because some of them clunk when you walk over them, and then you can see the water practically right under your feet. That plus the whole "I can't swim" scares the hell out of me. D:


I bet the bridge collapsing could've been prevented. They state in the article that they were doing repairs on the surface, but you'd think that they'd have inspectors at least once a month checking for stability and pressure points in the steel supports. Really, there's never enough that you can do to prevent things like this from happening, but if they're not even doing the least to keep bridges from collapsing, then I don't know what's safe anymore. :\

Oh, god, that's terrible. I hope that everyone who was injured in the accident will recover okay... as for those who died, that's just horrible. I hope that they at least enjoyed the view on the way down, as callous as that sounds, and that they weren't screaming their heads off. I just -- jeez.

I've feared for years that something like that would happen in my city. To cross into the city, depending on where you live, you have to cross over the river... there are plenty of bridges, and there are highways above the water near the city.

If one of them fell, considering how many people are travelling on them at all times, it would be chaos.

Actually, recently (last year, maybe?) they had to fix some cracks in one of the highways. If they didn't do that, I hate to think what might've happened.

Originally Posted by Frog

Oh, god, that's terrible. I hope that everyone who was injured in the accident will recover okay... as for those who died, that's just horrible. I hope that they at least enjoyed the view on the way down, as callous as that sounds, and that they weren't screaming their heads off. I just -- jeez.

I've feared for years that something like that would happen in my city. To cross into the city, depending on where you live, you have to cross over the river... there are plenty of bridges, and there are highways above the water near the city.

If one of them fell, considering how many people are travelling on them at all times, it would be chaos.

Actually, recently (last year, maybe?) they had to fix some cracks in one of the highways. If they didn't do that, I hate to think what might've happened.

At least they were keeping an eye on it, though. Be thankful they were paying attention or that someone spotted it in time. Dx

True.

I actually don't know how they were spotted, or even how big the cracks were. All I know is that they were fixed.

I don't pay much attention to things like that. :oops:

I can't believe people are bickering and arguing about this on other websites. It's the time of crisis, and people are just pointing fingers at one another, and I can't help but ask where their priorities are, and what is happening and going to happen to the human race. Instead of arguing, why can't they just think o ways it would be prevented.

Gah! Dx

It's so sad that people were hurt and injured, and y thoughts are with their families and I'm trying to hope for the safe recovery of those injured. If anyone here had family injured or killed in the accident, you have my deepest sympathy. :(

Yeah I saw and heard about this yesterday, They want to drain the river so they can get under the bridge I believe, from what I've heard. So tragic, And I am afraid of bridges to begin with. Oh and the death toll was higher when I saw it, there was a school bus on the bridge 52 students nine adults, conditions I don't know, because I wasn't able to read the rest >.< you know how they have them scrolly thingies at the bottom. Ah yeah according to this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6927725.stm

over 50 children led to safety from a bus that "clung to the side of a collapsed section"

I really didn't know what was going on,my family was talking about it at the dinner table last night,and when I asked what was going on ,they said I was to young to understand! >.>

But OMG,from what I heard there were 4 people found dead,and over 30 missing!

And I also heard that stupid George Bush wants I rebuilt as fast as possible!

I think that is retarded,If they build it to fast it will be a really bad bridge,I think it will be even worse than it was ,and that bridge was one of the 5 worst built bridges in the United States!

Try not to double post, but edit your previous post instead okay? ^^

I've heard it's up to six dead now and over 60 injured. So sad...

I just heard about it yesterday (I don't really watch the news), and I think it's so sad. :( There was an interview with the family of a lady who was found dead...
Especially since I've always had a fear of crossing large bridges. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge always scared me, it's a good thing I don't have to cross it anymore. xp

There needs to be regular checks on things like that. :x

I heard about it because my boyfriend took a picture on that bridge once, and when his mom heard about it collapsing she remembered that they had been there.