More bridge photos

This weekend the reopened the stone arch bridge which is a pedestrian/bicycle bridge that goes across the Mississippi a little ways north of the bridge that fell. This bridge has been closed since the accident and many people came to witness the horrible scene of the bridge wreckage scattered across the river. I decided to go and get some more pictures.

These 2 were shot from the stone arch bridge. It was sort of into the sun and I did not have a polarizer with me, I left my camera bag in the car since I had to do a lot of walking, so they are a bit over exposed.

This was shot from the east side of the bridge on the north side of the freeway. The tape is ironic. Maybe they should have put it up before the bridge fell.

This is the train that was crushed on the east side of the bridge taken from the north side of the freeway.

Here is the train from the south side of the freeway.

Here is the view from University Avenue as you go over the overpass bridge to 35w

The next two shot where taken from side streets on the University of Minnesota Campus, which is south of where the bridge fell.

This is a tragedy like nothing that I have seen in this area in my lifetime. As a child this used to be one of my big fears. I remember having a reoccurring nightmare of driving across bridges over the Mississippi into St Paul and having spans missing and driving off. Unfortunately my nightmare has come true for some very unfortunate people in the cities that I live and this might just be the beginning. MSNBC has a site that lists deficient and obsolete bridges on a state by state basis. Minnesota has 1140 deficient and 446 obsolete bridges, according to MSNBC. The bridge that spans the Mississippi into St Paul that my wife and I travel on at least twice a day on our way to and from work is listed at 49.5. The bridge that fell was rated at 50 according to the news.

Bridge disaster

Last night Michelle ran out to get some food and when she returned the first thing she did was grab the remote and change the channel on the TV. At first I was confused but when I saw the news I was shocked. With in a few minutes my parents called to make sure everyone was OK. The good news is that there does not appear to be anyone that I know who was on the bridge when it collapsed which is lucky since I do not work too far from the bridge. A coworker, who sits right next to me, had gone across the bridge on his way home from work about an hour before it fell.



This morning we went to try and get some pictures. As you can imagine there were a lot of people trying to get a look and a lot of news groups here covering the story. The area was pretty closed off by the police but here are the shots that I got.

The center section of the bridge is down in the river.

You can see the crack in the bridge deck.

Here is a shot of the construction that they where doing to replace the bridge deck.

I don't want to get too high up on the soapbox but this is what happens when our government leaders, a republican administration and a republican governor, care more about fighting wars for oil and giving tax cuts to the rich or keeping pledges, made to rich special interests, not to raise taxes. People died because of their negligence.