35W Bridge Collapse – I’m Okay

[On location in Cumberland, Wisconsin]
I’m sure many of you have already heard of tonight’s catastrophic collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis. I just wanted to let everyone know that I’m okay, though still a bit shaken because I drove over that very bridge earlier this morning (plus countless other times over the years). As of right now, 7 are confirmed dead, but that number is sure to rise, as this bridge collapsed at 6:05pm CDT with bumper-to-bumper rush hour & Twins game traffic sitting on it. There were a minimum of 50 cars that fell into the river, probably more, but they’ve called off the search for tonight due to darkness and too much debris in the strong currents of the Mississippi River. Now I’m extremely glad that I went with some friends to the Twins game last night, rather than tonight like had originally been talked about, because this is going to cause major problems with traffic in Minneapolis and the entire Twin Cities metro area, to say the least. It’s going to be a major traffic problem in the Minneapolis-St Paul metro area for at least the next two years, as 35W is a critical transportation artery in Minneapolis, and it’ll likely take a minimum of two years to replace that bridge. This really is a tremendous catastrophe for the Twin Cities. Ever since I first heard of the bridge collapse I’ve been glued to the radio and now the TV. I’m so glad I wasn’t on the bridge at 6:05pm tonight, because I very easily could’ve been on that had my plans been slightly different…
[UPDATE at 12:25am CDT on 2 August 2007]: The Star Tribune is now reporting 9 fatalities, with 60 injured and a further 20 people missing.