It is hard for me to put together my thoughts on this tonight, but it is such a major event, I think I have to at least try. You’ve probably seen the news reports on this already, but tonight as I was standing in the lobby of the hotel I’m at, I learned that the Interstate Highway 35W bridge that crosses the Mississippi River near the HHH Metrodome collapsed without warning, injuring 50+ people and killing 6+ people as well.

I saw the “Breaking News” on the TV from a distance when I came into the hotel and walked towards it to see where the earthquake was. The image looked just like the images of the collapsed freeway in California during the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. I was extremely surprised to see the caption say that the images were from Minneapolis. I was even more surprised to see which bridge it was. That bridge is *HUGE*. It has been there for longer than I’ve been alive. How could THAT have suddenly collapsed??

The good news for me is that my family is all fine. None of us live particularly near that bridge anymore, and none of my family need to cross it all that regularly either. Thank God. It wasn’t too many years ago that we lived much closer to it and had a need to cross it pretty regularly.

The implications for the future are huge — not even counting how this has changed the lives of the families who lost loved ones or have to deal with the aftermath of a critically injured family member. That road is a MAJOR artery in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metro Area — it is eight lanes wide! Losing that road will royally screw up traffic all across the area for at least a year and probably more. I can imagine it will take at least a year, and probably two or more, to remove the debris and replace the bridge with something else.

One of my co-workers put it pretty eloquently when I was chatting with him earlier about this. He said, “In a way, you should be thankful to be in a traffic jam tomorrow.” He’s right. I could be one of the poor souls who was crossing the bridge when it dropped. Given the choice, I think I’ll pick the traffic jam.

I’m sure there will be more on this later.

–Pete