Pink Poogle Toy Forum

This really got me thinking... what if there was a member of the forum who one day... was just... gone? You didnt hear from them anymore? Maybe they quit, maybe they lost computer privaledges or something... but maybe the last thing you would think is that they were stuck in some horrible disaster... and you would just never know. Well, it almost happened yesterday. I'm not bringing this up because I was almost lost, but Im bringing it up because this is a pretty disturbing thought, no matter what member it could be.

Yesterday was like... EVERY other day. It was hot, so I complained a lot at work about beind overheated, and then I called my friends who were all working so i went to my brothers house in minneapolis for a little while. Then, on my way home, I crossed a bridge that has been driven over millions of times, thousands and thousands of times every day.

I live right down here, and this is a HUGE disaster. I'm assuming you've heard about the bridge that collapsed in minneapolis over the mississipi river. If you looked at CNN, or listened on your news, "a bridge collapsed" and said "yikes. Thats a big mess. Thats awful."... this is... a very large scale disaster. This is... huge. I can tell you now, this is going to cause a reform in bridge structure and/or take hundreds of millions of dollars to restore any bridges that are in any rough condition in the united states whatsoever.

Here's precisely what happend to to bridge structure:

Note: This is a VERY LARGE bridge. It spans the mississippi. There were hundreds of cars on it when it collapsed:



The middle portion of the bridge cracked *there was a very loud noise and the ground in minneapolis around it shook* and it fell into the water. After that, the two sides of the bridge still connected to the land snapped off, and the opposite ends that were pointing toward the center lifted up into the air, litearlly creating a 45* angle on either side of the collapsed bridge.

Here are some details that you might not get directly on the news:

-They are NOT calling this a terrorrist attack. They have no leads or suspicions of that whatsover.
- This was right in the middle of rush-hour traffic.
-Here are the people numbers:
- - - - - - - *more than 70 people injured (20-30 critically)
- - - - - - - * almost 30 people missing
- - - - - - - *amazingly, only 4 people dead. Meaning, its incredible not more were taken, and its a miracle. Rumors said 7 for several hours, but police confirmed 4.
- - - - - - - * There were several construction workers on the bridge at the time doing typical bridge maintenance. 3 of them were injured, 1 in still missing.
-They called this a "Code Orange" emergency, which means all hospitals called for all employees to be rushed in immediately.
- Some 170 cars ended up in the water.
- There are still MANY cars left underneath the main part of the bridge that fell in the middle.
- City events being cancelled. The major leauge baseball team, the twins, has postponned their games, and they had a brand new stadium that was to have opened today, but they are cancelling the ground brreaking of that as well.
-There are no real leads onto why this exactly happened yet, other than that it has not been properly taken care of. It WAS a typical bridge. It wasnt falling apart, it wasnt scary to drive across. many many thousands drove across it all the time. Its just now after it collapsed, they are questioning whether or not they should have taken more care of it, and if they need to do so to bridges around the U.S. It did have a poor rating though. Just saying, it felt like any other bridge you would drive across downtown, but now they are pointing out that it might not have been as safe, from an inspection two years ago from the white house.
- To completely clean this up and have things back to normal will cost an estimated 250 million dollars or more... thats a quarter of a billion dollars.

- Thats 150,000 cars a day. The busiest bridge in minnesota.

There are only two videos out right now. One is just of a bunch of smoke from behind a building, but one is of a security camera that caught the bridge collapsing:
http://www.kare11.com/video/player.aspx?aid=51365&bw=

There are several amazing stories coming out of this... and things to think about:
-There are many heroes, and the police are definetely many of them. This is the missipppi river, and it is gigantic. A bridge collapsed, and a bridge is created to connect the land together... once that collapsed.. that means the only thing the police could do was swim. Think of the biggest river you've seen.. or swam in.. and imagine swimming halfway across it to go RESCUE people. These people are the true heroes.
-One woman has a phone call recording from when she was on her cell phone, and the bridge started to collapse, and she GUNNED it. She sped as fast as she could and safely made it across the river.

Perhaps the most AMAZING story... something you'd only hear in a movie actually happend.
- A SCHOOL BUS. Filled with little kids. Had almost made it across. The main portion of the bridge fell directly behind them, and they drove and pieces crumbled behind them. The bridge started to collapse, twist, turned, and fall at an angle, and they had just ALMOST made it to the pier.. when it collapsed.
Amazingly, they were stuck, crashed on the very edge. The bus was not in the river, but crashed into a cliff/side guarrail, over a "V" shape created by the land, and the portion of the bridge that was sticking into the air.
At the EXACT SAME TIME... a tanker that was driving behind them wasnt so fortunate... it fell, and EXPLODED right behind the bus.
Two men in a car who was right next to the bus managed to get out of their car, run up to the bus, and carry out all the kids who were inside to saftey. Some of the kids were somewhat injured, but it was a total miracle nothing more happened.

As for me? I'm fine, and i dont want it to sound like i was more invovled than I was... but I definetely crossed the bridge, drove into down, and next thing you know, the ground shakes, and you hear the noises youve never heard before... and I pull my car over. Theres screaming, and my brother calls me immedateily "WHERE ARE YOU? OH THANK GOD THE 35-W BRIDGE JUST COLLAPSED" and Im just like "WHAT? WHAT??? I JUST WENT OVER THAT BRIGDGE LEAVING YOUR HOUSE!!!!"

There was a stone arch-bridge near by that you could drive to, so i did sort of a U-turn and went and watched it. It.... was a horriblee site. ITs a gigantic mess. And its right downtown. I dont know what else to make of it.

I only got 3 pictures on my digital camera... i didnt really want to view this thing from behind the lense.... only 1 picture has the bridge in it, but you can see the crowds from the stone arch bridge I was on.







Here are other pictures of the bridge that arent mine.. but need to be seen.

Woah.
Good to hear that you're okay though.

Oh boy, that's the kind of thing I think about all the time. It really freaks me out, the thought that something could happen to one of us, and depending on the person, it would be unlikely that anyone would ever know what happened to them. That's the one and only downside to online versus offline friendships (as far as I see it), and occasionally I'll just start thinking about that (usually triggered by something like this) and it bothers me for a while...you'd only just driven over it? That's just...whoa. I...that...yeah. Sorry, I often think in feelings instead of words, and I sometimes just don't have words.

*shudders*

TWW, glad to hear that you are okay and made it across before everything happened. I hope that your family and friends are well and not affected by this tragic accident. You should share your pictures with the NTSB as you never know what they might see in your photos that could help them figure out what caused this.

Again, we are all happy to hear that you are alright. I'm sure we're all thinking about the people who have been affected by this.

Weez, I'm glad to hear you're OK. I have a friend in Minny, and the first thing I did when I found out about the collapse was email her - thankfully, she's fine, but it was a tense few hours before she got back to me.

Have you contacted the NTSB with your account? They're looking for witness accounts from everyone who was there at the time.

My aunt drove over that bridge about twenty minutes before it collapsed. Needless to say, I don't think she'll be going out for a while. My prayers go out to everyone who was hurt/affected by this accident.

Those photos just gave me shivers. I'd seen some before, but you certainly put it in context, TWW. Glad you're okay.

And yes, it's strange and a bit scary to think about, isn't it? What would happen if something happened to one of us. I wondered whether I should give my account passwords to my boyfriend and give him a message to give everyone, should something happen (I was thinking more in context of LJ than PPT). But on the other hand... maybe it would be better off for people not to know? I figure that anyone who knows me well enough, personally, would hopefully find out anyway. *meeps*

Jesus... That's really scary, and I think about that after a disaster occurs, because you may really never know what happened to a person. Good to hear you're okay.

I live in Texas, and even I know this is a huge deal, bigger than a lot of people think. Interstate 35 is one of the most important routes in the US, and probably the most important for trade in North America, since thousands of semis use it every day to travel between Canada, Mexico, and the US. And obviously, since it spans the US from north to south, many people use it to travel between cities. And, don't forget it's one of the main highways for the Twin Cities area.

The US DoT Secretary has already said that all of the state transportation departments should immediately inspect the bridges that have the same design as this one; there's about 750 that are like that in the US.

One thing that's annoying me is that the news keeps trying to sensationalize the disaster by saying traffic was bumper-to-bumper. Four of the eight lanes were closed for the re-paving of the deck, so it wasn't like all 8 lanes were filled with rush hour traffic. It could have been much, much worse, yet the news isn't even mentioning that.

When I saw this on the news I freaked out a bit because my friend is from the Twin Cities area. Luckily he is safe.

But the same can't be said for so many innocent people just making their daily commute. Its such a scary thing because most of us travel over a bridge daily. I know I go over several to and from work plus pass under lots of overpasses (one of which they're replacing).

Its just like the silver bridge all over again.

But though all of this there were so many heros. It restores my faith in humanity.

Just make sure you send those pictures to the NTSB. They're begging for anyone who saw it happen or has pictures to come forward to they can peice together exactly what happened.

The real sad thing in all of this, is that those trapped in cars are finally being brought to the surface...over a day later. But I know the MN police, fire and rescue did all they could. I live in a city where the mississippi is queen...and we know how cruel she can be (flood of 93...we lost our house).

I remember how, right after Hurricane Katrina, there was a scramble on another forum I visit to account for everyone from the New Orleans and Biloxi areas, including a former moderator from this forum(Nightcrawler). It was a forum with a lot of veteran members who had drifted from the forum but were still part of the community, so there were a few people who didn't get confirmed as okay for up to a week after that. It was scary, not knowing if everyone had made it out okay.
I used to worry about what might if I died and there was no one to tell all my online friends and acquaintances, but I realized that if there was no one to tell them, well...maybe it's better for people to just think I lost interest in PPT and my other communities anyway.
It's frightening, coming so close to a disaster like that. I hope you and yours are all okay, TWW.

Glad you are safe TWW!

That is a huge bridge, nearly 2,000 feet long. Although it wasn't packed full of people, there were many cars (and a bus) on it. I am glad that most people survived.

I hope all you are safe.

I'm really impressed that you made that reference.

haha Shapu...I study cryptozology very intensively. A very long and legandy cryptid was seen before the bridge's collasp and is the 2nd largest sighting of it in history (1st being chernobyl). Infact it was so famous they made a movie out of it (about the mothman's sightings there).

But the way the 2 bridges fell is so eeriely close to one another. And we wont know an exact death toll until all the cars are brought to the surface. And frankly, I'm afraid to see that number...because its not just a number, its human lives lost. Which is very sad.

Wow that is.. wow. I'm so glad you're alright.. and man, the poor people who aren't.. how sad..

Oh, I know the story. It's just that most people don't. Hence, my impressednessosity. I grew up in Charleston WV, and my grandfather was one of the Charleston newspaper reporters sent to Braxton County to report on the Braxton County Monster, which has been tied to Mothman (but I still say was just an owl).

And my dad's a civil engineer from the state, and was hired right after the Silver Bridge fell.

I didn't know the dude was seen at Chernobyl. Those wacky ukranians, always summoning aliens...