Tuesday, September 18, 2007

The Twistiest thing I saw today.

It has been well over a month since a major freeway bridge over the Mississippi River collapsed here in Minneapolis.

Families affected by the collapse are grieving, healing, and maintain hope for a better tomorrow. People still go an gawk at the site. The city has found ways to keep traffic flowing and to keep us all progressing.

There are benefits going on around town and the University of Minnesota has already launched a class about the disaster and urban life.

And some very strong people are working hard to clean up the concrete and steel and rebar.

The bridge remains are being shipped a bit down river on big barges, lifted up onto the river bank where they are to be pieced together by some people who will try to figure out what happened. My bus drives over the river in view of this "crime lab" each day.

The steel supports lie on the ground in piles- some piles are broken but straight pieces, some look like steel spaghetti piled up. It is hard to fathom that so much life and weight ever depended on that mess.





My thoughts are with those investigators and workers. I am stymied by how they can take a look at all that twisted and broken steel, focus, and make any sensible thought beyond "Whoa." or "Sh_t."

1 comment:

sarah said...

you are right. even from afar it is unbelieveable... what a difficult job to be right in the middle of it all.