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James Hill’s Stone Arch Bridge, a grand curving railroad entrance to downtown Minneapolis now is a pedestrian and bike way. It has a spectacular view of downtown Minneapolis and the St. Anthony Falls, now nearly dried up in the drought. But all eyes are turned downriver. What we can see is the 10th Avenue Bridge. It is quite beautiful and it should be a delight to behold except that we’re not supposed to be able to see it.

THE DISASTER SITE PHENOMENA is as described in the news: large crowd of people so quiet I can hear the wind blowing across the river and the faint sound of water going over the falls. Reminds me of visiting the Alamo in San Antonio: for Texans a place so revered they remove their 10-gallon hats upon entering. But here is something not observed in the news: these visitors are middle to upper middle class types. Minnesota’s Alamo for people who drive cars back and forth to the suburbs.

Someone has mounted two U.S. flags above the downriver side of the bridge. A lefty bicyclist crossing toward Minneapolis breaks the silence by shouting: “What’s patriotic about a bridge collapsing?”

I wonder what people make of all of this mess as we walk down Second Street to the point at which the freeway crosses on approach to the river. Concrete sections are aimed up and aimed down. Vehicles glued crazily to them as though the drivers set their parking brake whilst exiting to run for their lives. One car turned upside down onto another. Dylan notices the giant numbers that have been spraypainted on the sides by rescuers. We stand across the street and Dylan says: “This is close enough.” He can see all he wants to see.

Is there any lesson for wealth-bearing Americans at this place? We are viewing mayhem that is but a fraction of one day’s worth of death and destruction in Iraq. Would that country have been of such great interest to our Texan president were it not for its vast oil reserves? Here on our own soil we get a taste of what our oil-based transportation economy is doing to us. We drive our cars there to have the experience. Do we also experience the irony?

The lefty guy on the bicycle and dozens like him whiz across the Stone Arch Bridge on their way home from work, weaving around gaping members of the throng and barely glancing over their shoulders. This is not their bridge that has collapsed. Not their disaster. Many of these folks will be riding to work in the dead of winter while automobile commuters wait in traffic to follow MinnDOT’s convoluted detour.

Click on photo to see source

The traffic morass caused by the I-35W bridge collapse has been moving ever eastward. SR 280 was turned into a temporary freeway. But this weekend some connecting ramps are being improved along the detour and the highway department is recommending Snelling as an alternative. The street that runs right through the middle of our Hamline-Midway neighborhood (Star Tribune Aug. 9).

We’re accustomed to the occasional Snelling jam up. Northbound to the State Fair in the morning and southbound from the State Fair in the evening. Classic car show. Same deal. We know how to route around all of that and we are accustomed to adapting with surprising cheerfulness to these consequences of urban congestion. But it is not unreasonable to ask, is all of this really necessary?

Why does the government have such a serious responsibility to ensure absolutely that I can aim my 2.5 ton wagon at any place in the city I want it to be anytime I want it to be there? Does anyone even begin to suggest that maybe I should just, well, stay home or, alternatively, take the bus or ride my bike? That notion does not appear in the Strib story. 

  Dylan with Pronto Pup | click for larger version

The people sitting in their cars during State Fair time could very easily have gone to one of the many park and ride lots where they could ride a free bus to and from the fair. In some cases the free bus goes along a dedicated right of way ensuring no waiting for deep fried food items on a stick. This year, with all of the mess, possibly the Fair organizers could simply shut down the parking option on the Fair grounds and tell all of the fair-goers to park and ride. But that idea seems completely absurd, doesn’t it?

Strib story: Click Here | Am I dead, I must be dead | Username = lafondblog | Password = lafond | If story no longer available, see comment to this post

They come equipped with the same narrow white spiral bound notebook that I used 30 years ago during my brief journalism career during a decidedly lower tech time. They write their notes on both sides of each sheet and with that capture history one mental snapshot at a time.  

During a disaster you sit in front of your TV watching the same images over and over again, waiting for the massive public radio organization about nine miles away in Saint Paul to stop broadcasting “Marketplace” and get someone to the scene. You hear the same information on the TV delivered breathlessly by reporters who are trying their best not to allow themselves to be stunned into silence by the horrific vision behind them. You wait and wait and wait in front of the TV for the newspaper to bounce against your screen door the next day. You know, at least for the moment, there are a dozen actual journalists issuing forth from the newspaper office for every one of their compadres in television and radio.

The newspaper reporters stand back. Their photographers scramble in every direction. The television people — especially those from the networks — elbow their way to the front. TV and even public radio can’t, won’t, tell you what happened. TV and radio can’t put you on those concrete chunks with the survivors following those able to help the injured. TV and radio cannot describe for you what it is like to watch a car slide off the deck into the black waters of the Mississippi River, a trail of bubbles coming to the surface representing a life being snuffed out as you watch helplessly. Asking yourself, how did I survive? They can’t capture all of that because they can’t BE there when it happens. And if they can’t BE there they settle for secondary images. The stories they are telling make very little sense.

The newspaper reporters, an endangered species, study, synthesize, argue with their colleagues and editors, write and occasionally rewrite. Interviewing everyone they can find: survivors, family and friends of survivors, family of the dead and missing. They bring humanity to the enormity of tragedy. And if that were not enough, they take their little narrow notebooks and start trying to find out why it happened. They are everywhere at once. Interviewing every expert and piecing together the puzzle as best they can. Long after this story loses its visual impact and thus the interest of visual media, the little narrow notebook people layer on a little more. Inspections, politics, money, power, public opinion, Congress, special session, NTSB final report. Every day somewhere near the front page we will read about it.

In short order public radio and TV and all of the new media will be building their stories using one secondary source conveniently delivered to them each day.

It’s all there in black and white. The Republican record of shame. And for this behavior Pawlenty was awarded high approval ratings by the voters. Time Magazine has hailed his “creative” solutions to problems. Three cheers for the governor who refuses to invest in his own state! Now as the dust settles around the stunning I-35W bridge collapse and divers continue their search for victims, the consequences of Republican malfeasance become evident. Pawlenty’s spokesman now says a special session of the legislature is “being considered” and reconsideration of the gas tax bill is “a possibility.” Democrats are saying a lot more things are a possibility as well. Such as reversing Pawlenty’s veto of the Local Government Aid bill.| Below – Bush visit to disaster site on Saturday.

Tomorrow President Bush will be here to view the wreckage that is emblematic of what he has done to this country. Squander its wealth on never-ending war leaving little to simple little things such as replace bridges that are about to fall down. Today the U.S. House UNANIMOUSLY approved a bill containing $250 million for a new structure over the Mississippi River. They said that as early as this evening the U.S. Senate may approve a bill containing identical language to that of the House. In two, three years we will have ourselves a beautiful new bridge. Not in time for the Republican National Convention (which will be here a year from now). How ironic that the Republicans are coming here in 2008.

They found a perfect place for the President and his entourage to view the wreckage, some of it still containing the “dead bodies” (TV loves that label) of victims of our political failures. But the recovery workers said they wanted to use that spot for debris … for evidence. So I guess they found somewhere else.

Letters to the editor, etc. are pouring in about the irony of spending trillions on Iraq invasion and on the local scale the big announcements of a new ballpark for the Mn Twins while inspection reports go unheeded, policy makers keep saying no new taxes. they were literally resurfacing this bridge at the time of the collapse while the decision to add metal plates to the compromised substructure had been postponed because the state dept of trans is basically broke (this according to this morning’s paper).

Of course the DOT spokesperson said they would never base these kinds of decisions on money. an avoidable tragedy makes this seem all the deeper. that’s also how I would describe having this many republicans in office at once.

take care. Love, Wendy

Star Tribune user submitted photos

http://www.startribune.com/10136/gallery/1338952.html

http://www.conphoto.net/Collapse.html 

Letters to the Star Tribune August 3, 2007

http://www.startribune.com/letters/story/1340580.html | | Username = lafondblog | Password = lafond

I watched Gov. Pawlenty being interviewed by ABC’s Nightline this evening, being asked questions he would rather not answer. He has been so proud of his commitment to “no new taxes.” Well, now we have right in the Governor’s back yard a tragic example of the consequence no new taxes year after year after year.

Maybe this is not a Republican or Democrat issue. Undoubtedly it’s not the shortsightedness of just one leader — our current governor. In a democratic society the people ultimately need only look in the mirror if they want to know who is at fault. But now here it is. A bridge rated at 50 percent reposing in the Mississippi River. And as Gov. Pawlenty excuses … more than a thousand across the country with the same rating. And this legislative session he gleefully vetoed a 5 cent increase in the gasoline tax.

My father, a civil engineer who built roads and bridges in Pennsylvania, forty years ago wondered about the wisdom of creating a system of thousands of miles of “free” superhighways across the country. As a kid, the only time we drove cross country was on a Turnpike and we paid for the privilege. The Pennsylvania Turnpike — like many other toll roads primarily in the eastern third of the nation — is, to this day, very well maintained. My father always wondered where would the money come from to maintain all of these FREE ways. Who would make sure all of those thousands of bridges constructed as a part of Pres. Eisenhower’s ambitious program would be systematically repaired and replaced as they aged over time.

So here we are today. And we have our answer. My father, bless his soul, was right to worry. My hope is that you and your colleague Sen. Coleman (who said today bridges are not supposed to fall down) will become the champions of a new initiative to accelerate the maintenance, repair and replacement of our nation’s deteriorating infrastructure. It won’t be easy but you and Sen. Coleman have the moral imperative on your side. You have the pictures. You have the stories. For awhile, anyway, you may have the attention of the American people.

Patrick Sheehy

We’re not big on natural disasters. So, instead, we had to create one of our own. A “where were you when you heard the news” kind of event. Hooray for Minnesota. A bridge collapse.

One hour from now the three national news anchors will step in front of the cameras of their respective networks and have as a backdrop the collapse of the busiest river bridge in the state. During rush hour. Right before a Minnesota Twins game just a few blocks away. In full view of the people working late in the towers of downtown Minneapolis. Swoosh. In the silence that followed many who were first on the scene couldn’t even figure out what bridge it was that had gone down. Even people who were on the bridge and were trying to get off. The ultimate nightmare coming real of dialing 911 and not knowing what to tell the operator. That happened to a lady who was on the scene and was the first caller. Bridge? What bridge? Where?

The local authorities now report only four confirmed dead. The number of missing ranging from 20 to 30. Seeing the family members on local TV flashing a photo of the Mom, the spouse of 30 years. “She doesn’t usually use that bridge. We just know she is alive. She is a fighter.” We know there will be more family members like that. And within a few days the magnitude of this event will become clearer to the people living so close to the eye of the camera it is hard to understand just what has happened. It is no 9/11 in New York and Washington, DC. It is no Katrina in New Orleans. But we compare it to that only because those cataclysmic events are in our recent memory.

As a former newspaper reporter it is all I can do to keep from going to the site. But I won’t do it. I know that people’s loved ones are entombed in that bridge lying in the water. And divers can’t even look for them because the currents are too dangerous. The local reporter talks to the witness and asks characteristically: “Did you see any dead bodies in the water?” He waits expectantly for the answer. And she looks at him as though she doesn’t understand the question and then slowly shakes her head, no. It is like 9/11 in that the dead are hidden from our view. And family members wait and hold out hope. I have been to New York City a number of times since 9/11. Business has taken me only blocks from “Ground Zero” and I have never gone to see it. When there is a memorial I will visit. But I do not want to gape into the open grave of so many innocent dead.

Today I called the Star Tribune a newspaper whose offices are so close to the disaster that their reporters can more easily walk than drive to the site. I wanted to suggest they consider writing a story about the news media covering this story. The three national news anchors here. The media organizations coming here from all over the world. The guy on the other end had the characteristic journalist’s cynical response that I mostly expected would be the reception to my suggestion. Then he told me: “We have 150 people from our newsroom covering this story.” That detail took my breath away for a moment. Then I said … well, that’s part of the story as well, don’t you think. He seemed far from convinced. There was so much to do. The notion of assigning somebody to write about the media must have seemed absurd. My guess is they are being besieged with requests by media organizations throughout the world.

We sit here 4.6 miles away. The location, all too familiar, especially to me because I worked almost in the shadow of that bridge for nearly a year. I commuted to work on a bicycle passing under it. On a bus. In my car. Not crossing. I didn’t need an Interstate Highway to get to work in the city. I was already there. Four point six miles away. I don’t have to go to the scene to know what it looks like. I already know. I can see the bridge. I can see the cars flashing across it when traffic isn’t backed up as it so often was. I can see those weird trusses that, I kid you not, I always wondered how they managed to keep that thing in the air. We could hear the sirens yesterday as every emergency service known to the Twin Cities rushed to that scene. And we were glued to our TV sets. They broadcast continuously through the evening, into the night, into the morning. They are still broadcasting now.

In 30 minutes the lights will go on. Katie Couric, Brian Williams and Charles Gibson will lean into the bright lights and tell our story to the world.