Death toll expected to rise at Minneapolis bridge

Thu Aug 2, 2007 3:19PM EDT

By Todd Melby

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - Rescuers pulled more bodies from the swirling brown waters of the Mississippi River on Thursday in what authorities said would be a slow and dangerous recovery operation after the worst U.S. bridge collapse in more than 20 years.

Two boats circled slowly near the tangle of steel girders and concrete while divers searched for more victims killed when the 40-year-old bridge in the Midwestern U.S. city of Minneapolis buckled during Wednesday evening rush hour.

Four people were confirmed dead and authorities said the toll was certain to rise.

There was no immediate explanation for why the 500-foot (150-metre) span collapsed.

"A bridge in America just shouldn't fall down," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat of Minnesota.

More than 50 vehicles tumbled 65 feet into the river and onto debris from Interstate 35W as the bridge collapsed into a plume of dust, smoke and screams.

At least 60 people were hurt, with broken bones, head, neck and spinal injuries.

Federal authorities quickly ruled out terrorism as a cause, but state and federal safety officials said the bridge's inspection record did not indicate it was unsafe.

Specifically, the collapse raised questions about work being done to the bridge's deck, lighting and guardrails at the time of the collapse.

"What caused this unbelievable, almost incomprehensible tragedy?" added Republican Sen. Norm Coleman. "We need to understand that to make sure that this type of tragedy never happens ever again."

Dolan said several more bodies were recovered on Thursday but he did not provide a new death toll.

"People were pinned. People were partly crushed, talking to rescue workers ... telling them to tell their families goodbye" before they died, Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan said.

"It is still a tremendously dangerous scene," he said.

WAITING AND WONDERING

People watched the recovery operation from grassy banks and the steps of a riverfront theater.

"It was chaotic," said tow truck driver Mike Euhl, who helped rescuers find their way down into the river as victims scrambled to escape half-submerged vehicles.

"These are horrible images but within each of those images is a story," Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak said. "That car you see tangled in the wreckage is someone's cousin, brother or husband. ... Thank God this wasn't worse."

City officials said the search effort and subsequent clean-up would take several days.

National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Mark Rosenker said investigators planned to rebuild the bridge piece by piece off-site to try to reconstruct what happened.

The bridge had passed inspections the past two years, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said, though it was among thousands of bridges across the country deemed to be "structurally deficient" in a 2005 U.S. government report.

"(The rating) was by no means an indication that the bridge was not safe," U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said at the scene. "None of those ratings indicated there was some kind of danger here."

She said it was the first time a bridge collapsed without an outside trigger, such as an earthquake or collision, since 1983, when three people were killed in Connecticut after a bridge collapse on Interstate-95, the major U.S. East Coast highway.

The administration pledged $5 million for initial clean-up efforts.

"We in the federal government must respond and respond robustly to help the people there not only recover but to make sure that lifeline of activity, that bridge, gets rebuilt as quickly as possible," President George W. Bush said in a statement.

More than a dozen construction workers were beginning their shift at the time of the collapse. One worker from Progressive Contractors Inc. was among the missing and was feared dead, said the Minnesota company's owner, Michael McGray.

"But we don't give up hope," McGray said.

(Additional reporting by Benno Groeneveld in Minneapolis, David Morgan and Doina Chiacu in Washington and Carey Gillam in Kansas City)

Divers Look for Bridge Collapse Victims
Aug 2, 6:05 PM (ET)

By JON KRAWCZYNSKi

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Divers searched the Mississippi River for bodies still trapped beneath the twisted debris of a collapsed bridge Thursday, as finger-pointing began over a report two years ago that found the bridge was "structurally deficient."

The official death count from Wednesday evening's collapse stood at four, but Police Chief Tim Dolan said more bodies were in the water. Hospitals officials said 79 others were injured.

A strong current and low visibility hampered the search, and divers were pulled out of the water briefly Thursday afternoon so the water could be lowered, said Inspector Jeff Storms of the sheriff's department.

Twelve vehicles had been located in the river, officials said.

"We have a number of vehicles that are underneath big pieces of concrete, and we do know we have some people in those vehicles," Dolan said. "We know we do have more casualties at the scene."

The eight-lane Interstate 35W bridge, a major Minneapolis artery, was in the midst of repairs when it buckled during the evening rush hour. Dozens of cars plummeted more than 60 feet into the Mississippi River, some falling on top one of another. A school bus sat on the angled concrete.

The bridge is the state's busiest, and carries approximately 141,000 vehicles per day.

The White House said an inspection of the 40-year-old bridge in 2005 found problems. The Interstate 35W span rated 50 on a scale of 100 for structural stability and was classified as "structurally deficient," transportation officials said.

The designation means some portions of the bridge needed to be scheduled for repair or replacement, and it was on a schedule for inspection every two years. "It didn't mean that the bridge is unsafe," Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said.

Earlier, at the White House, press secretary Tony Snow said while the inspection didn't indicate the bridge was at risk of failing, "If an inspection report identifies deficiencies, the state is responsible for taking corrective actions."

Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Thursday ordered an immediate inspection of all bridges in the state with similar designs, but said the state was never warned that the bridge needed to be closed or immediately repaired. Another inspection was scheduled for completion in September.

"There was no call by anyone that we're aware of that said it should be immediately closed or immediately replaced," Pawlenty said. "It was more of a monitor, inspect, maintain, and potentially replace it in the future.

Around the country, a handful of states, including Arizona, Michigan, New Jersey and New Mexico, ordered inspections of their own bridges

In the river, divers took down license plate numbers for authorities to track down the vehicles' owners. Getting the vehicles out was expected to take several days and involve moving around very large, heavy pieces of bridge.

As many as 30 people were reported missing, and the rescue effort had shifted to recovery.

Relatives who couldn't find their loved ones at hospitals gathered in a hotel ballroom Thursday for any news, hoping for the best.

Ronald Engebretsen, 57, was searching for his wife, Sherry. His daughter last heard from her when she left work in downtown Minneapolis Wednesday. Her cell phone has picked up with voice mail ever since.

"We are left with the hope that there is a Jane Doe in a hospital somewhere that's her," Engebretsen said.

As many as 50 vehicles tumbled into the river when the bridge collapsed, leaving those who could escape to scramble to shore. Some survivors carried the injured up the riverbank, while emergency workers tended to others on the ground and some jumped into the water to look for survivors. Fire and black smoke rose from the wreckage.

"People who were pinned or partly crushed told emergency workers to say 'hello' or say 'goodbye' to their loved ones," Dolan said.

Aron Dahlgren, 23, a University of Minnesota graduate student, was driving to his girlfriend's home when the bridge began to fall. He noticed overhead road signs in front of him start to sink - and then his car plummeted.

"That's the longest two or three seconds of your life," Dahlgren said. "That was the scariest place. I kept on thinking - I kept on questioning, was this how I was going to die. If I'd have left 30 seconds earlier, I'd have been over the water."

Jay Reeves was one of the first people on the scene after the collapse. He tried calling 911, but all the lines were jammed. Then, he heard the sounds of children's screams from the school bus.

"I opened my car door and was greeted by the screams of lots of kids. Screaming kids are good. That means they're alive and full of a lot energy," said Reeves, 39, a trained paramedic and the public safety coordinator for the Minnesota American Red Cross.

The children were sent back to his office, where he spoke to them and tried to calm them down while their parents were located. One frantic boy told him that his shoulder hurt, he said.

"I took his head in my hands and said 'you need to calm down. Take a deep breath and hold it,'" Reeves said.

The Homeland Security Department said the collapse did not appear to be terrorism-related, but the cause was still unknown. Federal officials announced Thursday that $5 million would be rapidly released to help with efforts such as re-routing traffic around the disaster site.

The first step of the federal investigation will be to recover pieces of the bridge and reassemble them, kind of like a jigsaw puzzle, to try and determine what happened, NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker said.

Investigators also want to review video of the collapse, and were setting up a phone number for witnesses to call with information. A team of 19 people was coming to the scene to help with the investigation, he said.

"It is clearly much too early in the initial stages of this investigation to have any idea what happened," Rosenker said.

This week, road crews had been working on the bridge's joints, guardrails and lights, with lane closures overnight on Tuesday and Wednesday. In 2001, the bridge had been fitted with a computerized anti-icing system that sprayed chemicals on the surface during winter weather, according to documents posted on the Minnesota Department of Transportation's Web site.

The bridge is blocks from the heart of Minneapolis, near tourist attractions such as the new Guthrie Theater and the Stone Arch Bridge. As the steamy night progressed massive crowds of onlookers circulated in the area on foot or bicycle, some of them wearing Twins T-shirts and caps after departing Wednesday night's game at the nearby Metrodome early.

The steel-arched bridge, built in 1967, rose 64 feet above the river and stretched 1,900 feet across the water. It was built with a single 458-foot-long steel arch to avoid the need for piers that might interfere with river navigation. The depth of the water underneath the bridge is between 4 to 14 feet, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.

The collapse was not expected to have a sizable impact on barge shipments of grain and freight. The stretch of the river is largely used by recreational boaters and seldom by shippers, who rely more on bigger locks south on the river, said Bill Gretten with the Army Corps of Engineers.

---

Associated Press Writers Brian Bakst and Patrick Condon contributed to this report from Minneapolis; Martiga Lohn contributed to this report from St. Paul, Jim Suhr contributed from St. Louis and Deborah Hastings and Erin McClam contributed to this report from New York.

(This version CORRECTS daily traffic load on bridge to 141,000.)

Faults in collapsed bridge 'found in 1990'

HENRY JACKSON IN MINNEAPOLIS

A BRIDGE that collapsed in the United States, killing at least five people, was deemed "structurally deficient" as long ago as 1990, it emerged yesterday.

Engineers warned that more than 70,000 bridges across the country - about 12 per cent of the total - were in the same condition.

Experts estimated repairing them all would take a generation and cost more than $188 billion (£92.7 billion). Authorities ordered 700 bridges of a similar design to the one that failed in Minneapolis to be inspected.

Five people have been confirmed dead and 79 injured when Interstate 35W bridge plummeted more than 60 feet into the Mississippi River during rush hour on Wednesday.

It had been feared a further 30 people were missing, but yesterday this was lowered to eight as divers continued to search the wreckage. It is not thought likely that there will be any other survivors.

As the US tried to come to terms with the disaster, a local newspaper reported that plans to shore the bridge up had been postponed pending other repairs and Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota's governor, said there had been "warning signs" of problems with the 40-year-old bridge. "There was a view that the bridge was ultimately and eventually going to need to be replaced," he said.

Mr Pawlenty insisted the state had not been warned that the bridge should be closed or immediately repaired.

He warned that the condition of all bridges in the US had to be investigated. "Anybody who looks at the national picture and says that we don't have a problem would be naive, or misreading the situation. We have a major problem," he said.

During the 1990s, inspections found fatigue cracks and corrosion in the steel bearings around the bridge's joints. These problems were repaired. Starting in 1993, the bridge was inspected annually instead of every other year.

Dan Dorgan, the state bridge engineer, said the bearings could not have been repaired without jacking up the entire deck of the bridge. Because the bearings were not sliding, inspectors concluded the corrosion was not a serious issue.

After a study raised concern about cracks, the state was given two alternatives: add steel plates to reinforce critical parts or conduct a thorough inspection of certain areas to see if there were additional cracks. They chose the inspection route, beginning that examination in May.

"We thought we had done all we could," Mr Dorgan said. "Obviously something went terribly wrong."

The collapsed bridge's last full inspection was completed on 15 June, 2006. The report shows previous inspectors' notations of fatigue cracks in the spans approaching the river, including one four feet long that was reinforced with bolted plates.

Officials identified the dead as Sherry Engebretsen, 60, Julia Blackhawk, 32, Patrick Holmes, 36, and Artemio Trinidad-Mena, 29, a Mexican citizen.

Ronald Engebretsen said he and his family were trying to come to grips with his wife's death. "She's a great person. She's a person of great conviction, great integrity, great honesty and great faith in her God," he said.

More bodies had been spotted in the fast-moving river currents, which were "even more treacherous" yesterday than a day earlier, Sheriff Rich Stanek said.

Among those still officially missing is Sadiya Sahal, 23, and her two-year-old daughter, Hanah Mohamed.

Mrs Sahal, who is five months pregnant, left home at 5:15pm with the child in the back seat. She called her family at 5:30pm, saying she was stuck in traffic on the bridge, according to Omar Jamal, a spokesman for the family. "Her husband is destroyed. He's in shock," Mr Jamal said.

This article: http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1219402007

Last updated: 04-Aug-07 01:57 BST

Minneapolis death toll stands at five

August 3, 2007

The Minneapolis fire chief says it is a miracle that only five people have so far been confirmed dead in the collapse of one of the city's main road bridges over the Mississippi River.

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty said outside experts would review the decisions of state engineers to delay certain repair work on the heavily traveled 40-year-old bridge, which crumpled during evening rush hour on Wednesday.

After a day in which divers tried to reach the bodies of more victims amid the smashed cars and blocks of concrete in the treacherous waters, Fire Chief Jim Clack said a fifth victim was found and more bodies were certain to be found.

"With that big a piece of the bridge falling in the river and the time of day, I thought it would be much worse," Clack said.

"Initially, when this happened, I was worried there would be dozens of fatalities, if not hundreds. It's quite a miracle really," he said.

Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek said an official estimate of eight people still missing was "fluid" and subject to change. One person reported missing had turned up safe at work, he said.

Twenty-seven of the 98 people injured in the disaster remained in area hospitals, including five in critical condition and another five in serious condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Pawlenty said engineers had decided to periodically inspect the steel superstructure beneath the Interstate 35W bridge and bolt on reinforcing plates where any flaws were found.

But that work, which Pawlenty said fit in the state's budget, was postponed by resurfacing and repair work which was under way when the bridge buckled and fell.

"Experts that we rely on, technical experts and engineers, made some decisions about what needed to be done. They thought they were making an appropriate decision for their reasons, and now those decisions will have to be reviewed," Pawlenty said. A private engineering firm had been hired for the review.

"The bridge was declared fit for service," he said. "There will be tough questions asked, including by me, and we will get to the bottom of this."

In Washington, the US House of Representatives authorised $US250 million ($A290 million) for the initial reconstruction of the bridge and to reimburse local governments for the cost of extra buses and other efforts to alleviate traffic snarls. The Senate was also expected to approve the money.

Divers searched submerged cars that had tumbled 20 metres into the Mississippi. "This is very dangerous work because the divers can get caught in the debris, some of which is razor-sharp," Clack said.

Divers battled swift currents and had to feel their way in the muddy waters around twisted steel and chunks of concrete.

"You got gas in there, oil. Besides, the Mississippi River is not the cleanest place. You didn't have any visibility, you just felt," Minneapolis Fire Department diver Raoul Raymose told CBS.

The eight-lane span was a vital link over the Mississippi River and the most heavily used bridge in Minnesota with roughly 140,000 vehicles passing over each day.

"It is striking the bridge was carrying a load of traffic it was not designed for," said the Democratic Speaker of Minnesota's state House of Representatives Margaret Anderson Kelliher.

Reconstruction estimates ranged as high as $500 million.

Visiting first lady Laura Bush praised the city's response: "We've seen the strength of your community, and because of that we're confident the bridge will be rebuilt and your city will heal."

President George W Bush is scheduled to tour the scene on Saturday.

Minnesota to Start Debris Removal at Collapsed Bridge

by John Hughes
8-6-07

(Bloomberg) -- Minnesota officials today are resuming efforts to find victims of last week's bridge collapse in Minneapolis as they prepare to bring in heavy equipment to remove cars and debris from the Mississippi River.

The $15 million salvage effort starting this week will begin with removing cars from the fallen highway and continue with opening a 56-foot-wide (17-meter-wide) river channel for barge traffic, according to Michael Koob, a consultant for the state from Wiss, Janey Elstner Associates Inc.

The debris removal may help locate the eight people missing after the Aug. 1 collapse, said Bob McFarlin, assistant to state Transportation Commissioner and Lieutenant Governor Carol Molnau. Five people have been confirmed dead.

``We will be focused on a recovery effort,'' McFarlin told reporters yesterday in Roseville, Minnesota. ``We will continue to have that focus until all who are missing are accounted for.''

President George W. Bush is expected to sign a bill to provide as much as $250 million for a new bridge, said Jim Berard, a spokesman for House Transportation Committee Chairman James Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat. Congress approved the funding two days ago. Oberstar plans to travel to Minnesota this week to meet with state officials and inspect the site.

State and local officials held a memorial service for victims of the accident yesterday evening. The National Transportation Safety Board is continuing its investigation by examining whether a construction project under way on the span may have played a role in the worst bridge collapse in 25 years.

The board interviewed construction workers and gathered information on the placement and weight of equipment and materials, NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker told reporters yesterday.

`Moment of Failure'

``We need to have an accurate depiction of what the bridge was like at the exact moment of failure,'' Rosenker said. ``All of this data is critical.''

The collapse during evening rush hour prompted recommendations to examine 756 similar U.S. structures and a federal review of whether inspection requirements should be more stringent. The Interstate 35W bridge was Minnesota's busiest, linking downtown Minneapolis to its northern suburbs.

The NTSB has agreed to let state and local authorities start removing cars and debris, Rosenker told reporters. Those operations, involving four cranes and one or two barges, will begin later this week, said Terry Zoller, the state's project manager for the effort to move the wreckage.

``It's going to be a very slow, tedious process,'' Zoller said. ``We will take pieces out very methodically and place them on a barge so we can examine each one of those pieces.''

Salvage, Construction

The salvage effort will begin months of heavy-equipment work at the site. Once the debris is removed, the effort will shift to construction of a replacement bridge, McFarlin said. The state hopes to approve a contract in September for a replacement bridge that will last 100 years, he said.

The $250 million approved by Congress will finance the debris removal and bridge construction, McFarlin said.

Federal Bureau of Investigation underwater research and recovery teams are on their way to Minnesota to assist in the search for victims, Hennepin County Sheriff Richard Stanek told reporters yesterday. Authorities are also seeking the help of U.S. Navy diving and salvage teams, Stanek said.

The construction project being examined by the NTSB began in June and was to be finished next month with replacement and repair of pavement, lights and guardrails. Work was being done toward the bridge's southern end when the span collapsed, Rosenker said.

The NTSB is also reviewing weather data starting in 1967 when the bridge was completed to determine whether temperature played a role in weakening the structure, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: John Hughes in Minneapolis at

Last Updated: August 6, 2007

Minneapolis Bridge Collapse Recovery, Investigation Continues

Date Published: Monday, August 6th, 2007

No more victims were pulled from the wreckage of the Minneapolis Bridge collapse this weekend, although rescue officials believe there are more bodies to recover from the Mississippi River. Meanwhile, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) continued its investigation into the Minneapolis bridge collapse, amid reports that construction crews working on the Interstate 35W Bridge had felt the structure “wobble” for several days before the collapse.

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, construction workers have said that in the days prior to the disaster, the Minneapolis Bridge had “wobbled” with every layer of concrete they moved. The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MNDOT) would not comment on the reports, saying that they would be part of the NTSB investigation into the Minneapolis bridge collapse. A spokesperson for MNDOT also said that the NTSB was seeking information on the number of lanes that the I-35W Bridge had when it opened in 1967, as well as the number of vehicles the bridge carried at that time.

The NTSB said over the weekend that investigation of the Minneapolis Bridge collapse could take as long as 18 months. The agency, which has 19 investigators assigned to the Minneapolis bridge collapse disaster, has concluded that the collapse did not originate on the south end of the I-35W Bridge, and they will look at the north side today. An NTSB investigator told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that investigators are being extremely cautious because the collapsed Minneapolis Bridge is continuing to weaken.

Those same conditions were making recovery efforts difficult at the site. Divers were expected to return to the river today to search for the missing, and the state has requested help from FBI and Navy dive teams. Last week, the Army Corps of Engineers lowered the level of the Mississippi River by two feet in an attempt to lessen the current. Today, crews will begin removing debris from the river. MNDOT has hired a contractor from St. Paul, Minnesota to handle debris removal. The cleanup is expected to cost at least $15 million.

Five people have been confirmed dead as a result of the Minneapolis Bridge collapse, and eight are still missing. On Saturday, families of the missing were brought to the site of the collapse for the first time. Sunday was a day of prayer and grieving in the Twin Cities, where about 1400 people attended an interfaith memorial service at St. Marks Episcopal Cathedral.

This morning, Minneapolis commuters attempted to make it into work without one of the city’s main corridors. The I-35W Bridge had carried 140,000 cars everyday. Commuters were encouraged to car pool and offered free bus rides. Meanwhile, MNDOT officials mulled over plans for replacing the collapsed Minneapolis Bridge. It is expected that replacement will cost in excess of $200 million. Late last week, Congress approved $250 million in emergency funds to help Minnesota with the cost of cleanup and bridge replacement. But MNDOT said that even with that money, the agency still faces a cash shortfall.

The I-35 W Bridge collapsed last Wednesday at the height of Minneapolis’ rush hour. Between 50 and 100 vehicles were on the bridge when it fell into the Mississippi River. Recent inspections of the Minneapolis Bridge had found it to be “structurally deficient”. The Minneapolis Bridge collapse is only the second time in 25 years that a highway bridge in the US collapsed without a cause like an earthquake or collision.

Navy, FBI divers join bridge search

PATRICK CONDON; The Associated Press

Published: August 8th, 2007 01:00 AM

MINNEAPOLIS – An elite team of Navy divers joined the search Tuesday for victims of the Minneapolis interstate bridge collapse, bringing to the job lessons learned from such disasters as TWA Flight 800 and the loss of the space shuttle Columbia.

The team of 16 divers and a five-member command crew arrived a day earlier. Once their gear arrived before dawn Tuesday, several divers immediately entered the Mississippi River even though local officials encouraged them to wait until daybreak.

“Two in the morning, they dove into the water,” Minneapolis Police Capt. Mike Martin said, calling them “the best divers in the world.”

“These guys make our SWAT guys look humble,” Martin said.

Navy Senior Chief David Nagle said the divers wanted to get a feel for the area and were in the water for about two hours. Divers were back in the river by late morning, removing concrete rebar and other debris.

Also Tuesday, state officials laid out tentative plans for the bridge reconstruction, and Gov. Tim Pawlenty said his office was considering a victims’ compensation fund.

The dive team’s arrival raised hopes of speeding up the recovery operation. At least eight people are missing and presumed dead in last week’s collapse, with perhaps more still in the river. Five people are confirmed dead.

Joining the Navy team was an FBI dive crew, doing forensic work for the investigation. Their tools included a small unmanned submarine equipped with a robotic arm.

“It’s basically crime-lab-underwater kind of work,” Martin said.

The city also asked residents to observe a moment of silence at the minute the bridge fell six days earlier. Bells at churches and City Hall tolled immediately after.

Four people still hospitalized with injuries from the collapse improved to serious condition, leaving only one person in critical condition. About 100 people were hurt in the disaster.

hero rewarded with college funds

A man who helped evacuate a school bus full of children after the Minneapolis bridge collapse has a generous offer to consider.

Jeremy Hernandez, 20, dropped out of Dunwoody College of Technology because he couldn’t afford the $15,000 tuition. Now, he can finish his two-year automotive technician degree for free if he wants to come back, the school said Tuesday.

Hernandez, a gym coordinator for a Minneapolis community organization, was coming back from a water park with a group of 52 children, ages 5-14, when the bus dropped toward the Mississippi River gorge as the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed. Everyone on the bus got out safely.

Dunwoody President C. Ben Wright said the school created a fund that would pay for the education of people “who have done unselfish things trying to better society.” The fund was created in response to Hernandez’s efforts. Hernandez hasn’t yet said whether he’ll accept the school’s offer.

The Associated Press

Metal Plates Examined in Bridge Collapse

By MARTIGA LOHN

The Associated Press
Thursday, August 9, 2007; 7:03 PM

MINNEAPOLIS -- The metal plates that held the girders together on a failed 1960s-era interstate bridge were originally attached with rivets, old technology that that is more likely to slip than the bolts used in bridges today.

Some of the plates, or gussets, also may have been weakened by welding work over the years, and some of them may have been too thin or too small, engineering experts said Thursday.

This photo made available by the Navy Visual News Service shows Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter, 2nd left, as he tours the site of the I-35 bridge collapse over the Mississippi river with Department of Defense, federal, state, and local officials in Minneapolis, Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2007.
(AP Photo/Navy Visual News Service, Seaman Joshua Adam Nuzzo) (Seaman Joshua Adam Nuzzo - AP)

The National Transportation Safety Board, in a brief Wednesday advisory to states to check such plates in bridges nationwide, cited a "design issue" with the bridge's gussets. Engineers say that the plates are an obvious place to start looking, but that a number of other factors might have contributed to the Aug. 1 collapse that killed at least seven people, with at least six still missing.

And on Thursday, NTSB officials said "people have run maybe a little bit too far" with the statement on the gussets.

"Simply by finding a piece of metal that's been sheared or twisted doesn't necessarily mean it's a critical piece of the puzzle," said Bruce Magladry, director of the NTSB's Office of Highway Safety. "We see a lot of steel that's damaged because of the bridge collapse. What we need to ferret out is what's an initial cause of damage vs. what's a secondary cause."

Engineering experts said failure of the plates, which usually sandwich the bridge's steel beams where they intersect, in a critical spot could have brought down the whole bridge, although no one has pinpointed a gusset as the cause of the failure.

"What they'll be looking for is to see whether one of the gusset plates may have fractured," said W. Gene Corley, a forensic engineer with the Skokie, Ill.-based engineering firm CTL Group. "If one of those gusset plates breaks, then you have lost half the strength at that location, and most likely the other one can't carry the load then."

The bridge's builders in the mid-1960s riveted the plates together, which required many more holes than bolts would have. More holes weaken steel, said Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, a professor of structural engineering at the University of California-Berkeley, who compared them to Swiss cheese.

The rivets also tend to slip more than bolts and can lead to more cracking, Corley said. Bolts are preferred in modern bridge construction, and were used in more recent repairs.

Welding work on some gussets _ at temperatures of 2,600 degrees or more _ could also have caused tiny cracks to form as superheated steel cooled, which may have developed fatigue cracks.

Astaneh-Asl reviewed 1965 construction drawings of the bridge that showed varying thicknesses of the gussets. Some in key spots over the Mississippi River were only a half-inch thick, he said, and his rough calculation of the pressure they could withstand suggested they were weaker than the beams they connected. A cracked gusset is visible in photographs taken after the collapse, he said, but it's unclear what role that might have played in the bridge's failure.

State transportation officials say damage seen on the bridge's gussets might have been caused by the collapse.

Various problems in the bridge may simply have added up over the years and created stresses that the designers never contemplated, Astaneh-Asl said. For instance, at least one expansion joint locked up, possibly pulling one of the bridge's piers out of alignment and leading to undetermined pressures on other parts of the bridge. Such things could have made fatigue cracks worse, he said.

Inspectors who completed the bridge's last full inspection in June 2006 noted problems _ "section loss, pitting, heavy flaking rust" _ on several of the plates. They also reported loose bolts on another gusset.

Corley, who has been invited to be part of a private investigation into the collapse, said he saw "lots of rust" on the gussets.

"It brings the issue of load and brings the issue of fatigue there as well as corrosion," he said.

But something could have gone wrong in design, too, Corley said. Each plate is individually designed, and someone could have miscalculated the load or weight-bearing capacity of an individual gusset plate, he said.

"In design there's always the chance for a blunder," Corley said. "One of the most common causes of collapse of any type of structure is the blunder."

Investigators are looking closely at the weight that was on the bridge when it fell.

Construction crews had piled up sand and gravel on the bridge as they prepared to pave a 520-foot stretch of two southbound lanes of the freeway, said Liz Benjamin, a construction engineer with MnDOT. Equipment on the bridge included a cement truck, a concrete mobile mixer, buggies to haul the concrete and personal vehicles of the workers. Workers also were using 45-pound jackhammers to remove the top layer of pavement.

The bridge was one of Minnesota's busiest, carrying 140,000 vehicles a day. Mark Hallenbeck, director of the Washington State Transportation Center at the University of Washington, said that's dramatically higher than designers would have considered in 1965.

The traffic would have contributed to fatigue over the years, Corley said. But the weight of truck and vehicle traffic is "pretty insignificant" next to the weight of the bridge itself, he said.___

Associated Press writers Patrick Condon in Minneapolis and Seth Borenstein in Washington contributed to this report.

2 Bodies Found in Minn. Bridge Wreckage
Thursday August 9, 2007 10:01 PM

By PATRICK CONDON

Associated Press Writer

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Searchers found two more bodies Thursday in the wreckage of the interstate bridge, bringing the death toll to seven with at least six missing more than a week after the bridge crumbled into the Mississippi River, authorities said.

Crews have been searching the site for the past week for eight people missing and presumed dead in the Aug. 1 collapse.

Dave Hayhoe, the police homicide unit commander, announced the recoveries ahead of a briefing on the investigation. He said the bodies were recovered by divers, but he gave no other information.

``Right now the first priority is notifying the families,'' Hayhoe said.

The Hennepin County Sheriff's Office said the first body was found shortly after noon and wasn't immediately identified.

Among the eight are a pregnant nursing student and her 2-year-old daughter, a construction worker nicknamed ``Jolly,'' and a former missionary who had been on his way to meet a friend for dinner.

As the recovery operation continued Thursday, so did the investigation into the cause of the collapse. Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday they had found design flaws in the bridge's gusset plates, which help tie the steel beams together.

That discovery prompted Transportation Secretary Mary Peters to advise states to carefully consider any additional stress placed on bridges during construction projects. An 18-person crew had been working on the Interstate 35W span when it collapsed during the evening rush hour.

J. Richard Capka, administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, said Thursday that the agency would quickly advise transportation agencies around the country of steps they should take if a systematic problem with gusset plates was found, though he said no such advisory was in the works.

``Gusset plates have been around a long time, and they've been a reliable feature, and we have no indication that they've ever been part of a suspect bridge problem or a bridge failure before,'' Capka said.

``They have not concluded that they've discovered anything specific that might have contributed to the collapse,'' he added.

State officials have announced tentative plans for a replacement bridge to be opened by the end of 2008. Gov. Tim Pawlenty also said he was willing to reverse his long-standing opposition to a state gas tax increase to pay for infrastructure improvements in the state.

President Bush on Thursday dismissed raising the federal gasoline tax to repair the nation's bridges, though - as proposed Wednesday by House Transportation Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar, D-Minn. - at least until Congress changes the way it spends highway money.

``The way it seems to have worked is that each member on that (Transportation) committee gets to set his or her own priorities first,'' Bush said. ``That's not the right way to prioritize the people's money. Before we raise taxes, which could affect economic growth, I would strongly urge the Congress to examine how they set priorities.''

At the bridge site, recovery crews have removed several vehicles from the river in the last two days, and Navy divers have searched for possible victims in and around the others.

In all, 88 vehicles have been located, both in the river and amid the broken concrete wreckage of the bridge, according to the State Patrol.

NTSB investigators have been trying to pinpoint where on the bridge the collapse began. Observations from a helicopter camera Wednesday found several ``tensile fractures'' in the superstructure on the north side of the bridge, but nothing that appeared to show where the collapse began, the NTSB said.

Investigators were still working to verify the loads and stresses on the beams, as well as materials in the plates.

They also were looking into reports of wobbling before the collapse.

The company that was doing construction work at the site, Progressive Contractors Inc., rejected a report that a worker noticed unusual swaying of the bridge in the days before its collapse. The company said it didn't believe any of its work contributed to the bridge failure but hadn't responded directly to claims of wobbling.

``We have now met with every single worker who was on the bridge when it collapsed,'' Tom Sloan, vice president of the company's bridge division, said in a news release Wednesday. ``None of them observed or reported any unusual swaying.''

The eight people reported missing and feared dead in the bridge collapse have been identified as Christine Sacorafas, 45, of White Bear Lake; Vera Peck, 50, and her son Richard Chit, 20, both of Bloomington; Greg Jolstad, 45, of Mora; Peter Hausmann, 47, of Rosemount; Sadiya Sahal, 23, of St. Paul, and her 2-year-old daughter, Hanah; and Scott Sathers, 29, of Maple Grove.

---

Associated Press writers Archie Ingersoll in Minneapolis and Frederic J. Frommer and Jennifer Loven in Washington contributed to this report.

August 11, 2007

8th body found in Minneapolis bridge collapse

MINNEAPOLIS -- Divers removed another body from the wreckage of a freeway bridge Friday, while the federal transportation secretary offered $50 million to help with recovery and rebuilding.

The known death toll from last week's collapse reached eight when Navy divers found a body about noon.

The latest victim was identified as Sadiya Sahal, 23, St. Paul. A body found Thursday was identified as that of her 2-year-old daughter, Hanah Sahal.

Those identifications reduce the list of known missing and presumed dead to five.

During her visit, Secretary Mary Peters stood near a fallen section of the bridge as she announced the latest emergency aid. The funds are an advance on $250 million approved by Congress but not yet appropriated.

The money comes on top of $5 million in federal emergency aid pledged right after the Aug. 1 bridge collapse and $5 million to help the public transit system handle the loss of the heavily traveled span.

Associated Press - August 12, 2007 11:03 PM ET

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The official death toll in the Minneapolis bridge collapse has risen to nine.

Divers found another body in the Mississippi River Sunday.

The county medical examiner's office has identified the remains as those of 20-year-old Richard Chit of St. Anthony. His mother is still missing.

The other three people known to be missing are 45-year-old Christine Sacorafas of White Bear Lake; 45-year-old Greg Jolstad of Mora; and 29-year-old Scott Sathers of Maple Grove.

About 100 people were injured in the collapse, but only eight remain hospitalized.

Today, a crane removed a school bus and other vehicles from one end of the ruined span. In all, 44 vehicles have been removed from the bridge since its collapse. About 100 vehicles had been on the structure when it fell.

Two More Victims Found in Minneapolis Bridge Wreckage

Search crews in Minneapolis have pulled out the tenth and eleventh bodies from the wreckage of the interstate bridge collapse.

The remains haven’t been publicly identified by officials

The first remains were found in a vehicle recovered on the night of Aug. 15, 2007, with the second set of remains found the morning of August 16.

A national Greek community group said one of those whose body was recovered had been driving to her church to teach a folk dancing class at the time the bridge fell.

Officials have released the identities of nine people killed in the August 1st collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge.

Before the latest recoveries, four people were listed as missing

Associated Press Writer
Aug. 20, 2007 08:27 PM

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The remains of the last person missing after a bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River nearly three weeks ago have been found, authorities said Monday, bringing the official death toll to 13 and relief to the only family still awaiting word on a missing loved one.

Gregory Jolstad, nicknamed "Jolly," was on the construction crew that was resurfacing the bridge when it fell Aug. 1 during the evening rush hour. Jolstad, 45, was driving a skid loader, commonly known by the brand name Bobcat.

Divers had gone back in the water early Monday, and Jolstad's wife, Lisa Jolstad, has said officials had vowed to continue until they found her husband.

Greg Jolstad, 45, was one of 18 construction workers on the bridge working for Progressive Contractors Inc. The other 17 survived the collapse. Seven suffered injuries, but none critical.

Also Monday, Gov. Tim Pawlenty asked President Bush to declare the collapse a major disaster, which would make the state eligible for more federal money. The governor said the emergency response costs alone would be more than $8 million.

Bush was scheduled to be in Minneapolis on Tuesday and to get a briefing on the bridge.

Jolstad had worked for PCI for 10 years, often commuting 90 miles one way to road jobs in the Twin Cities from his home in the central Minnesota town of Mora.

Lisa and Greg Jolstad were married in 1995 and lived with Lisa's three teenage children from a previous marriage in a 97-year-old farmhouse north of town where Greg Jolstad grew up.

"Greg never wanted to venture far from home," Lisa Jolstad said.

Her worst fear since the collapse was that her husband would still be missing after all the other victims of the disaster had been found - and that's exactly what happened.

A tax assessor currently between jobs, Lisa Jolstad is living for now on her husband's paycheck, which PCI continued to issue, as well as paying for grief counselors for family members.

"Everyone at the company is just heartsick for Greg's family," said David Lillehaug, PCI's attorney.

Lisa Jolstad said earlier that she was trying to keep occupied by getting the farmhouse ready for winter.

"I sit home every night, and I just can't believe he's not coming home," she said. "I look out the back door window and it's weird not to see his truck out there. I look out the bathroom window at the sky and know he's up there, and I say, you know, why did you have to leave, Greg?"

12-25-07

Hundreds Feared Dead in Nepal
After Bridge Collapses

The Bridge Collapsed on Christmas Day,
Killing at Least 15 People

By NICK SCHIFRIN
NEW DELHI, Dec. 26, 2007

Bridges have given so much to Nepal's isolated villagers. But on Christmas Day, one bridge took
entire families away.

A 400-foot-long steel foot bridge over the Bheri River in Chunchu collapsed Tuesday afternoon,
killing at least 15 people and injuring hundreds. At least 70 people are still missing and presumed dead.

Hundreds of police officers, soldiers and locals are searching the river's icy waters for any survivors.
But the current is strong, and there is little hope of finding anyone alive. Some of the bodies were
found three miles downstream from the bridge.

"Most people did not know what happened. The bridge collapsed and most people on the crowded
bridge fell in the river," 20-year-old Durga Bika told The Associated Press from his hospital bed in
Katmandu. "The bridge was on top of me and my leg was caught. My friends pulled me out and
saved me."

Most of the victims were women and children. The youngest was only 5 years old.

"I heard a sound like a bomb explosion," 10-year-old Rabindra Buda told the Indo-Asian News
Service, after he had been pulled out of the river. "Then the bridge started swaying. I felt myself
falling and hit the water. You couldn't see the river anymore. It was full of human heads."

As many as 500 people were walking across the bridge toward a monthly, full-moon Hindu festival
when its steel cables gave way, plunging most of the bridge into the water about 100 feet below.

"We still don't know exactly how many people are missing so we have sent teams to nearby villages
to get information from families on whether they have not heard from their relatives," chief
government administrator Anil Pandey told the AP.

Nepal's villages are separated by mountains and the rivers that run through them. There is little
to no access to paved roads, so residents rely on their feet — and a relatively new network of
1,000 bridges throughout the country.

In all, at least 45 miles of bridges have helped to open villages up to the outside world in recent
years, reducing prices by giving farmers easier routes to deliver produce and saving lives by
making hospitals more accessible.

The bridge in Chunchu, about 310 miles west of Katmandu, was born out of peace.

It was built just last year after the government signed a cease-fire agreement with Maoist rebels,
who have waged a decade-long insurgency that devastated much of the country's infrastructure.
Rebels have destroyed bridges and roads in order to isolate government troops, but this time, the
bridge fell because it was not designed to support the weight of so many people, authorities say.

It collapsed just one day after Nepal's government took a historic decision to abolish its monarchy.
Under the deal, agreed to by the rebels, Nepal will become a republic after a general election
scheduled for next year.

This afternoon the government released a statement promising an investigation into the incident.
It also promised to pay $400 to each of the victims' families.

QUESTIONABLE REPORTING

BBC INTERVIEWS EYEWITNESS WHO SAYS THAT LARGE HOLES WERE DRILLED INTO CONCRETE SUPPORTS A FEW DAYS BEFORE BRIDGE COLLAPSED

Posted By: RayelansMailbag <Send E-Mail>
Date: Tuesday, 7 August 2007, 5:50 a.m.

"Some interesting info regarding the Minneapolis bridge collapse.

I was watching BBC News24 at about 3am(GMT) this morning. Whilst covering the bridge collapse they had a witness on via telephone who spent a few minutes explaining how he walks under the bridge almost daily. He had witnessed the fact that large holes had been drilled/cut through the concrete supports.

This angle was covered for an hour or so on the news and they had this same guy on again later - however, this time whilst he was re-telling the same story there was a weird buzzing/pulsing sound and he was cut off mid-talk.

It is now 10.30am GMT and BBC News24 are no longer reporting this guys story - not only that but they are reporting that all rescue efforts were stopped after a couple of hours and that the police have cordonned off the bridge - since when do rescue efforts stop when it gets dark, esspecially whne there are supposed to be people in cars at the bottom of the river."

http://www.expansions.com/QA_Comments.cfm

August 2, 2007

Massive ULF ‘Blast’ Detected In US Bridge Collapse Catastrophe

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers

Reports from Russia’s Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics located in Irkutsk are reporting today that their Siberian Solar Radio Telescope (SSRT) detected a ‘massive’ ultra low frequency (ULF) ‘blast’ emanating from Latitude: 45° 00' North Longitude: 93° 15' West at the ‘exact’ moment, and location, of a catastrophic collapse of a nearly 2,000 foot long bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

To the horrific destruction of the Interstate 35W Bridge which spanned the Mississippi River we can read as reported by the Star Tribune News Service:

"The 1,907-foot bridge fell into the Mississippi River and onto roadways below. The span was packed with rush hour traffic, and dozens of vehicles fell with the bridge leaving scores of dazed commuters scrambling for their lives.

Nine people were confirmed dead as of 4 a.m. today. Sixty were taken to hospitals and 20 people were still missing this morning. Authorities said they expected the death toll to rise."

Russian Military reports state that the total collapse of such a massive bridge, and in the absence of evidence linking its destruction to terrorist activity, could only have been accomplished by an acoustic weapon, of which the United States Military is known to possess.

These reports further state that one of the United States primary research organizations into acoustic weapons research is Augsburg College, and which is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and most importantly less than 1 mile from the Interstate 35W Bridge collapse.

To the exact reason of why, and what exactly happened in this catastrophe we can only speculate, but, with what is known about the United States past history of using sophisticated weapons on their own citizens for ‘research’ purposes it certainly lies in the realm of possibility that this horrific tragedy is rooted in the use of ULF weapons.

To the past usage of these new types of weapons we can read even back into the 1980’s of the United States research into their use as reported by the CNN News Service:

"Imagine the implications of a weapon with no visible trace -- a weapon that could knock out tanks, ships, and planes as fast as the speed of light. The same technology, with modifications, could disorient and even tranquilize military personnel, rendering them virtually helpless in the battle zone. These are the new weapons of war we will examine in this series.

For the past 40 years, the world has been riveted by the threat of nuclear war, and more recently by the prospect of space defenses using lasers and other modern technologies.

Lightning is the most dramatic form of energy to be found in nature. Scientists have succeeded in creating limited types of artificial lightning. And some think that these could be the forerunners of a new type of directed-energy weapon, part of a family of weapons that operate within the radio frequency segment of the electromagnetic spectrum, and are thus referred to as radio frequency weapons."

To the dangers of ULF weapons being used against civilians we can read the warnings of Dr. Rauni Leena Kilde, MD, the former Chief Medical Officer for Lapland (northern Finland), who warned in 1999:

"When the use of electromagnetic fields, extra-low (ELF) and ultra-low (ULF) frequencies and microwaves aimed deliberately at certain individuals, groups, and even the general population to cause diseases, disorientation, chaos and physical and emotional pain breaks into the awareness of the general population, a public outcry is inevitable."

To the exact reason of why the United States would be targeting Minneapolis with such a massive ULF ‘blast’ we can find in the exact neighborhoods that surround the Interstate 35W Bridge, and which are home to one of the largest Muslim populations in the United States, including over 30,000 Somalis who are outraged by the US sponsored invasion of their home Nation by Ethiopian forces.

For the American people as a whole, this catastrophe provides yet another example of the consequences of their allowing their Military Forces to gain total control over their economy and lives, and which history has long shown leads always towards total destruction.

[Ed. Note: The United States government actively seeks to find, and silence, any and all opinions about the United States except those coming from authorized government and/or affiliated sources, of which we are not one. No interviews are granted and very little personal information is given about our contributors, or their sources, to protect their safety.]

Minneapolis Bridge Collapse - the Zetas Explain

by Nancy Lieder

8-2-07

What caused the collapse? Initial reports indicated terrorism was not a factor. The Zetas had warned of collapsing bridges up and down the Mississippi, due to the torque stress the N American continent endures.

ZetaTalk Prediction 2/10/2006:
[link to www.zetatalk.com]
This creates a diagonal stress on the N American continent where New England is pulled to the east while Mexico is pulled to the West, so the New Madrid is put under slip-slide stress where one half, east of the Mississippi, will move toward the NE while the other, west of the Mississippi, moves toward the SW. A widening Seaway also does not affect just those land masses bordering the Seaway, as buckling occurs inland and afar. What does man assume caused the Black Hills to be so rumpled, with the appearance of a recent bucking and heaving? This is the center of a land plate! The tearing of the Seaway does not end at Duluth, MN, it travels underground to S Dakota!

ZetaTalk Prediction 8/16/2006:
[link to www.zetatalk.com]
What does this do to the N. American plate? It pulls it at a diagonal, ripping the rock fingers along the New Madrid fault such that the land to the East of the Mississippi moves up and to the East, toward New England, and the land to the West of the Mississippi moves down and to the West. This does more than tear most of the bridges along the Mississippi.

Did such a torque affect Minnesota, causing the collapse? The Zetas explain.

SOZT
We have predicted that bridges crossing the Mississippi will be affected when the New Madrid and related fault lines adjust, going into the pole shift. Was this bridge crossing the Mississippi in Minnesota caused by such an adjustment, the footings on one side of the bridge moving in an opposite direction from the footings on the other side, or perhaps the bridge being pulled apart? The Mississippi is born in Minnesota, tumbling out of the headwaters in the highlands of Minnesota over a series of natural falls. This is a clue that adjustments in the rock strata could be involved. The highlands of Minnesota come to a point at Minneapolis, with lower land lying to the East along this point. What caused the land to the East to drop, unless this land was stretched in the past? We have stated that the ripping apart of the St. Lawrence Seaway ends in the rumpled Black Hills of SD. Run a line from Montreal, at the mouth of the Seaway, to Rapid City, SD and the line runs through Minneapolis. Why would an adjustment be made in the MIDDLE of this stretch zone while the seaway itself did not part? When we described the diagonal pull the N American continent is enduring, and just how this will snap when adjustments are made, we did not intend that this process would occur smoothly, all at once as described. Weak points along the rip lines give way one by one, each such adjustment placing stress on other points in a domino manner. The I35W bridge, being the larger of the bridges crossing the Mississippi at this point, was less able to adapt to a change in position vs a vs its footings on either side of the river, as it was an interstate bridge, supporting several lanes, and thus had massive and thus rigid supports. Smaller bridges have more flexibility as they are built to withstand uneven loads on either end, thus are more springy by design. Will there be more such disasters along the Mississippi and in the cities that will be affected by the New Madrid and Seaway rip? This is just the start, and when the pace picks up, there will be no question that something OTHER than Global Warming is the cause.
EOZT

Check out the ZetaTalk website!
[link to www.zetatalk.com]

Dear Friends,

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/09/russian-siberia.html

Love and Light.

David

Siberian-Solar Radio Telescope Detected Mysterious Ultra Low Frequency
'Blast' in Sync with Minnesota Bridge Collapse Russia's Institute of
Solar-Terrestrial Physics located in Irkutsk reported recently that their
Siberian Solar Radio Telescope (SSRT) detected a 'massive' ultra low
frequency (ULF) 'blast' emanating from Latitude: 45° 00′ North
Longitude: 93° 15′ West.

ULF is the frequency range between 300 Hertz and 3 kilohertz. It is often
used in mine and submarines communications, as it can penetrate earth and
water.

The time and location of the ULF 'blast' detected coincides exactly with the
time and locations of the tragic collapse of a nearly 2,000 foot long the
Interstate 35W Bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota that killed at least a dozen
people and seriously injured many others.

The time and location of the ULF 'blast' detected coincides exactly with the
time and locations of the tragic collapse of a nearly 2,000 foot long the
Interstate 35W Bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota that killed at least a dozen
people and seriously injured many others.

So far there has been no evidence linking its destruction to terrorist
activity. However, according to Russian Military reports, the total and
instantaneous collapse of such a massive bridge could only have been
accomplished by an acoustic weapon. The United States Military is known to
possess acoustic weapons.

In fact, one of the United States primary research organizations for
acoustic weapons research is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota at Augsburg
College. The acoustic weapons research facility is less than 1 mile from the
Interstate 35W Bridge collapse.

Whether the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics reports have are accurate
or not remains to be seen. Unfortunately, it would not be unprecedented for
the US military to test weapons on civilians. The Orange County Register
recently took a look back at human nuclear weapon testing that took place 50
years ago last month.

"In retrospect, the audacity of 1957's Operation Plumbbob was stunning: a
series of 29 aboveground atomic explosions witnessed at close range by
18,000 men testing their ability to fight on a nuclear battlefield. Planes
flew through radioactive clouds. Marines marched through radioactive sand.
Paratroopers jumped through radioactive skies…the National Association of
Atomic Veterans estimates that more than 900,000 men and women took part in about 1,000 nuclear tests from 1945 to 1992. And more than 140,000 may have suffered cancer or other illnesses as a result."

Acoustic weapons have been under research for decades in the both the US and Russia. Other nations reported to be involved in research on developing
acoustic weapons include Russia, China, France, United Kingdom, and Israel.
Sweden, Japan, Poland, Yugoslavia, and Denmark are reported to have acoustic weapons effects research programs. This type of weapon is commonly seen as a better alternative to nuclear weapons, as it leaves no polluting radioactive materials behind.

Posted by Rebecca Sato
Related links:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/accoustic.htm

http://www.bestsyndication.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3288&sid=ba3374673c2abceff0e7eee654949209

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,159127,00.html

CALIFORNIA BRIDGE COLLAPSE

7-31-07

FedEx driver, construction worker injured in Oroville scaffolding collapse
Iron support beams of scaffolding crushed a FedEx truck near Oroville.
Associated Press photo by Steve Yeater

08/01/2007 12:38 AM ID: 63934

Bridge Collapse Traps Driver

Robert Sylvester, 45 of Chico CA, was trapped for three hours in his Fed Ex truck after a portion of a bridge under construction landed on his truck. Sylvester's leg and foot were trapped when one of the beams fell on the front of his truck.

A construction worker standing on top of the portion that collapsed, "surfed" the wreckage down to the ground. He and Sylvester were both sent to the hospital where they are expected to survive.

FCI Constructors, the general engineering contractors for the project were cited by Cal-OSHA last year for intentional failure to report worker injuries.

Source: www.kcra.com

Fall ... a highway overpass being built in California collapsed overnight / AP

2 Hurt in Calif. Highway Bridge Collapse
By DON THOMPSON 07.31.07, 7:17 PM ET

OROVILLE, Calif. -

A highway overpass that was under construction collapsed Tuesday, crushing a delivery truck and seriously injuring a construction worker who clung to a steel beam as it tumbled 50 feet to the ground.

Firefighters swarmed the FedEx (nyse: FDX - news - people ) delivery truck to cut its driver from underneath a large steel beam that crushed the hood but missed the cab. A second beam landed on the back of the truck.

The cause of the collapse was being investigated.

The driver, Robert Sylvester, 45, of Chico, was pulled free about 2 1/2 hours after he was trapped. He suffered only a sprained ankle and minor cuts, his wife, Carol, told The Associated Press.

"We've gone from thinking he was absolutely the unluckiest person to the luckiest," she said, taking her husband home from Enloe Medical Center in Chico.

The construction worker, Jeffrey Doll of Olivehurst, who was on top of the structure, also was injured when it collapsed about 7:15 a.m.

"He rode it 50 feet down to the ground. It's incredible that he's going to survive that one," said Mark Dinger, a spokesman for the California Department of Transportation.

Doll, 39, was in serious condition with a fractured pelvis, fractured left elbow and broken lower left leg at the hospital in Chico, hospital spokeswoman Sharon Cuglietta said.

The overpass was being built over Highway 149 where it intersects with Highway 70, about an hour north of Sacramento, California Highway Patrol spokeswoman Karen Ogle said. The project began last summer and was scheduled to be completed in fall 2009.

Highway 149 had been closed overnight and until 5 a.m. Tuesday while workers from private contractor FCI Constructors Inc. erected concrete columns and steel tubes weighing 2,400 to 3,000 pounds that were held together with cables and steel I-beams, Dinger said.

FCI has no record of health and safety violations, and a random inspection in July 2005 found no infractions, said Kate McGuire, a spokeswoman with the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health.

FCI Constructors President Curtis Weltz, who arrived at the site after the collapse, said he did not yet know what caused the structure to collapse.

"There's a bunch of different possible scenarios. It's never happened to us before," Weltz said.

Jacque Underdown, a spokeswoman for the project's second contractor, Granite Construction (nyse: GVA - news - people ) Co. of Watsonville, said the company was cooperating with investigators.

Carol Sylvester said her husband, a father of three who has worked for FedEx since 2003, had begun his delivery route and was driving north when he saw something fall.

"He saw something fall, he thought a box. Then things started hitting the truck," she said. "I think he's in shock and glad. It was a long time in the truck and he's glad to be home."

Construction crews planned to stabilize the remaining structure and remove an estimated 70 tons of steel worth about $50,000 that crashed onto the highway.

"The top priority right now is to stabilize this and get it reopened to traffic," Dinger said.

Meanwhile, FedEx was evaluating the "large number of packages" damaged in the accident.

"When it is deemed safe and all official investigations are complete, the packages will be retrieved and returned to our local facility," said spokesman Robert Boulware.

The Department of Transportation was rerouting traffic until the road could be reopened, possibly as early as Wednesday morning.

Associated Press writers Samantha Young in Sacramento and Marcus Wohlsen in San Francisco contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS age of deliver truck driver to 45, sted 46, per his wife. UPDATES that delivery truck driver released from home; ADDS comment from his wife and contractor. Minor edits.)

FedEx driver, construction worker injured in Oroville scaffolding collapse

Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

07-31) 14:58 PDT OROVILLE -- Newly erected scaffolding on a highway ramp under construction near Oroville collapsed this morning, sending a construction worker plummeting 50 feet to the ground and crushing the legs of a FedEx driver who was trapped in his truck.

Thirty-six tons of steel girders and bent posts crashed to the ground around 7:15 a.m. at state highways 149 and 70 about 5 miles north of Oroville in Butte County, Caltrans spokesman Mark Dinger said. The cause of the collapse was not immediately known.

Two steel beams landed on the FedEx truck, crushing driver Robert Sylvester's lower extremities and trapping the 45-year-old Chico resident in the truck for more than three hours, officials said.

Anne Sylvester, Robert's mother, said her son is recovering, "as far as we can tell." She did not know the extent of his injuries but said she had seen her son in the hospital and that he was conscious and talking to his family.

"It's a miracle," she said.

Robert Sylvester has driven for FedEx for five years, his mother said. She said this was his first on-the-job injury.

Also hurt was 39-year-old Jeffery Doll of Olivehurst, an employee of Caltrans contractor Flatiron Construction, said Dinger. He suffered broken bones in his leg, elbow and pelvis after the platform he was standing on collapsed.

"It's incredible he survived," Dinger said. "He had all his safety equipment on, and it saved him."

Both injured men were being treated at Enloe Medical Center in Chico, Dinger said.

Another person, 29-year-old Carrie Underwood of Oroville, broke both her femurs when she rear-ended an unoccupied Caltrans vehicle shortly after the collapse.

The state is upgrading two-lane Highway 149 to a four-lane expressway, and the project includes several flyovers between highways. Dinger said false work -- temporary scaffolding that serves as a platform for construction workers -- for the flyover that will connect highways 149 and 70 had just been put in place Monday night and this morning.

The roadway was closed from 10 a.m. until 5 a.m. while the false work, made of steel girders and bent posts, was constructed. A portion of it collapsed just a little more than two hours after the work was finished.

The state Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the cause of the collapse, and Caltrans is working with the contractor to secure the false work, Dinger said.

Dinger said officials may be able to make at least a preliminary determination of the cause by Wednesday morning.

The flyover is being constructed by FCI Constructors Inc. of Benicia, a subsidiary of Flatiron Construction Corp. of Colorado. Caltrans has contracts with the company to work on several high-profile projects in the Bay Area, including the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge and the toll plaza approach to the new Benicia Bridge.

According to the U.S. Labor Department statistics, the company has had five reports of safety violations in the last five years, including two in California.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Bridge in danger of collapse: area evacuated
Tucson, AZ.
July 31, 2007 05:23 PM PST

The Alvernon Way bridge over Aviation Hwy. has been closed. The city is concerned that the structural integrity of the bridge is in jeopardy.

Heavy rains have eroded the highway and have possibly affected the overpass supports.

Drivers are advised to stay off the roadways across Tucson. If you must drive, please use extreme caution and do not drive through flooded roadways or washes.

Southern bridge can collapse any time: official
7-31-07

The 43-year-old Dong Nai Bridge in the eponymous southern Vietnamese province, connecting three industrial hubs including Ho Chi Minh City, can collapse any time, an official has warned.

Colonel Nguyen Phi Hung, provincial deputy police chief, speaking at a conference Monday, blamed it on the increasing traffic which was overloading the bridge.

He had warned the Ministry of Transport several times but it had said the bridge “had seriously degraded but cannot collapse”.

Tran Van Quan, deputy director of the province’s transport department, told the conference that it was not until recently when the local administration had directly pleaded with Minister of Transport Ho Nghia Dung that he had instructed a state-owned company to do a feasibility study for a new bridge.

The bridge links Dong Nai and Binh Duong

Vital Cayuga County bridge collapses
New York State
Posted 7-31-07

By: Evan Axelbank

CAYUGA COUNTY, N.Y. -- Now that pieces of this deteriorating bridge are lying in the water, the people who rely on it to cross the Seneca River, hope a turning point is here.

"You're really, really mad, and yet you're excited at the same time, that it finally did collapse again, for the second time, and maybe, now they will do something about it," said Tonya Anelli, a Haiti Island resident.

Bridge gives out

Parts of a bridge in Cayuga County collapsed early Saturday morning. The bridge connects the town of Mentz to Haiti Island. No one was hurt in the collapse, but for the 60 people who live on the Island, the bridge is a matter of survival. Ironically, just last week, the town held a meeting with state and elected officials to talk about how to fix the bridge. But the bridge collapsed before a plan could be put into motion. News 10 Now's Evan Axelbank explains.

"You can't get groceries, no fuel trucks can get across, no water delivery can be delivered, we're just basically all stranded," Anelli said.

The bridge is a 25 foot-long lifeline for an island that's not connected to municipal gas, water or sewer. The part that collapsed is from an old bridge, which is now covered by the newer main deck. For now, residents were allowed one trip to bring cars to the mainland, but will need to carry supplies on foot or by boat.

"It's not bad right now because it's summer time, but if this goes until winter, then you have the ice and a real big problem," said resident Betty Ranger.

The town of Mentz admits it has no solution on its own. Fixing the bridge isn't possible on their budget. For now, the state will send a team to inspect it to figure out if cars can begin to travel the bridge again.

"Our bridge inspectors will look at the structural elements, look at the condition of the deck and the substructure and make that determination," said Anthony Ilacqua, a State DOT spokesman.

But even if the state decides it's safe for cars, residents hope the bridge's latest collapse will be proof enough that it's time for higher levels of government to foot the bill for a new bridge, the only way to get to Haiti Island.

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Other cars remain stranded on the other sections of the bridge. Picture: CNN screengrab from KARE TV	"I was pretty much freaking out and sitting in the car with my foot as hard as it could go on the brake," Melissa Hughes, who was on the bridge with her three-month-old, told Fox News


Rescuers were checking the river for survivors as the scramble to save lives continued. Picture: AP/Pioneer Press	Some cars were flipped as the bridge gave way beneath them. Picture: AP/KMSP-TV


Repair work was being carried out at the time of the collapse, reports from the scene have said. Picture: AP Photo/KMSP-TV	Disaster zone ... the collapsed bridge, bottom left, a survivor receives assistance, top left, and a driver awaits help, right. Photos: AP/Star Tribune and AFP



City officials search the area after the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2007. (AP Photo/Eric Brandt)	Divers search for victims near the Interstate 35W bridge which collapsed over the Mississippi River on Wednesday in Minneapolis, Thursday, Aug. 2, 2007. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

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