I-35W Bridge over Mississippi Collapses

On August 1, 2007, the Interstate 35-W bridge crossing the Mississippi, just north of downtown Minneapolis, collapsed. Chris drives over this bridge twice a day to get to and from work. We're okay, but Chris was very close to having to tell a different story (or no story at all!). He was actually on the bridge when it collapsed.

What is usually a eight-lane bridge is down to 4 lanes b/c of the "road resurfacing" - so there were 2 lanes of traffic in either direction. Chris said going over the bridge for the past month or so has been stop and go, so he didn't think much of it when traffic slowed to almost a stop when he was driving home last night.

At that point, he was on the bridge, but still over land - about 50 yards north of where the Washington St. entrance ramp meets 35W north (circled in the picture above) - when he noticed a big plume of dust up ahead (this must have been just when the bridge fell), and a guy getting out of his car, urgently waving people backwards. Chris wondered about the dust cloud, but figured there must have been an accident further up the road.

Because traffic was bumper to bumper, he said it was very slow moving backwards. Then, all of a sudden, the guy was running towards Chris and the other cars yelling that the bridge had collapsed, and to get the hell out of there!

Luckily, as I said above, the two lanes on the far right was closed for bridge resurfacing, so cars started pulling into those empty lanes to turn around and head back south in the north-bound lanes. Chris followed the lead of the car in the lane to the right of him, and he said that the cars were MOVING! Once they reached the spot where the Washington St. entrance ramp met 35W, he said there was no where else to go, b/c there was bumper-to-bumper traffic coming in from the south, and the entrance ramp was also bumper-to-bumper of cars who were waiting to get on 35W. A few cars in front of Chris started going up the ramp on the shoulder/grass, and slowly cars on the ramp started maneuvering their way around and doing the same - so he and the other cars behind him were able to get up the ramp. When Chris was about halfway up the ramp, cops, ambulances, and fire trucks were starting to appear going towards the bridge. They didn't waste any time jumping the curb and completely driving down the grass of the ramp, b/c there was no room on the ramp itself.

When the bridge collapsed, Chris was right about where these cops are -

Luckily Chris called me before I even knew the bridge had collapsed to tell me he was turning around, so I was never given a chance to hit panic mode. When he called me, even he didn't know the extent of the damage yet - so he didn't sound too frightened or anything. From what he told me, I was thinking maybe a 10-15-foot span of bridge may have collapsed... I was still at work, so I turned on the radio to try to learn more information. From the preliminary reports that were on the radio, I still didn't know the extent of it, but figured it was worse than my original thought. It was when I got home and turned on the news that I realized how horrible it really was. I can't imagine what it might have been like if I'd heard about the collapse before I heard from him - wondering if he was okay!

I did just find out today that a coworker's son was on the north side of the bridge, between the two pieces of roadway that are sticking almost straight up. His SUV was crushed by a pickup truck. She's got some pictures in her cube, and it's hard to believe that he survived! But he did. I think I heard that he had a collapsed lung, a crushed face, and fused vertebrae, but overall, he's just lucky to be alive! Scary!

One of Chris's former Capella coworkers is still missing. Chris didn't know him, but it doesn't make it seem any less close to home.

So, whew!! Chris is okay. If he had been maybe 10-30 seconds earlier, we might not be able to tell this story!