I just went over that thing. Parents called to check if I made it home. *Whew*

Minneapolis Goodjers, check-in!

EDIT: Nevermind, I avoided this due to traffic. Looks like I would have been very wet had some kind individual not wrecked their car at fifteen till six tonight. Thanks buddy!

Oh geez. I have some friends from work up there, have to call them.

I used to drive over this bridge every single day. Glad today wasn't one of those days.

They were resurfacing the bridge, basically it appeared they were pulling up the old concrete and pouring on new stuff (which appeared to be about 2 inches thicker than the old layer (as far as I could tell while driving by at 45 MPH).
This bridge was odd in two ways it had no support in the river itself, it was a single long steel truss span, and it had a deicing feature (basically PVC pipes we run throughout the concrete and a deicing fluid is pumped through it when the conditions are right for icing).bridge specs

not sure what the jackhammer thing was, unless it was the supports failing one after the other.

OMG... That is horrible. I'm watching right now and I can't believe it. How the hell did that happen?!

I was watching local news (SF Bay Area) covering it, and they kept mentioning how eerily similar it was to the '89 earthquake that collapsed two major freeways and how the casualties were mitigated by the fact that the A's and Giants were due to start the third game of the World Series right around the time of the quake, thus there were fewer people on the roads at the time. I don't suppose the Twins were supposed to be playing a game around that time, right?

The channel I was watching made it a point to announce that it wasn't an act of terrorism. It seems to be the norm for everything bad that happens lately.

Wow, this is terrible tragedy. I hate heights and bridges and would probably have died from a heart attack before hitting the water.

actually it would have been a horrible target of opportunity militarily speaking as the damn thing was barely driveable because of the work they were doing, you aren't going to slow down traffic that much by removing it entirely at this point (and in fact that had done exactly that a couple of weekends not too long ago for the construction project)

I've never received phone calls and emails asking me if I was alive before. They're awkward, because the conversation's over as soon as you pick up the phone. Anyway, we're fine.

I'm feeling pretty calloused because I haven't finished my coffee yet, but I will say that I hope all you Minnesotan goodjers are alright. (Though you're all still bums. )

Driving around a huge area of the New York Tri-State area, you would be shocked that this doesn't happen multiple times a day in the US. Infrastructure is a concern, but is too expensive to test, study, and plan out- the replacement of bridges is a logistical nightmare according to officials.

This collapse instantly reminded me of the Mainus River collapse in Connecticut and the Schoharie Creek collapse in New York in the 1980s.

Why would you say that? It has the possibility of inciting silliness.

Welll, listening to NPR this morning, they interviewed a gas station clerk that was working at a gas station next to the bridge when it went down and he described the sound as a 'boom.' Now certainly millions of tons of concrete slapping land and water would make quite a ruckus, but regardless, it was the first thing I thought of.

Even though the bridge is rated a 4 out of 10 and is probably heavily stressed because of the wintry conditions in MN, it just seems a little odd.

Whichever construction firm and insurance company covering that firm were on that bridge are in a heap of settlements up to their ears.

Maybe this. Seems to be fairly borked though. Currently looking at this one.