My condolences to those victims and their families of the Minneapolis bridge collapse. As many of you know the bridge over Highway 35W that separates the East and West Banks of the University of Minnesota collapsed last night.
Emergency crews expected the recovery operation at the site of an interstate bridge collapse to last at least several days, as authorities lowered the number of confirmed fatalities to four, though they expected the death toll numbers to change throughout the day.
"This is not a rescue operation any longer; it’s a recovery operation which means we move slower and more deliberately," Minneapolis Fire Chief Jim Clack said at a press conference Thursday morning. "We want to make sure and search everywhere."
The eight-lane Interstate 35W bridge, a major Minneapolis artery, was in the midst of being repaired and two lanes in each direction were closed when the bridge buckled during evening rush hour Wednesday.
Police Lt. Amelia Huffman said: "This morning, the medical examiner’s office only has four sets of remains." Initial reports of seven people killed were based on the best estimates authorities had Wednesday night, she said.
But officials expected those numbers to change.
You would think that politics wouldn’t be brought up in this kind of situation but another State has gone through a disaster and take a guess who they are going to blame?
Here’s Rob from Say Anything where he has what Ed Schultz said this morning:
Here’s a paraphrase of what he said:
…the only reason Bush is talking about fatalities is because he didn’t give MN enough money to maintain the bridge.
Um, yeah. Who is it that appropriates funds for the nations highways, roads and bridges again? Oh that’s right…CONGRESS.
How about the local city and state inspectors whose job it was to ensure the bridge was in good working order? They to blame?
Wait for it, I’m betting the liberals will blame Iraq for this somehow….if they haven’t already started.
UPDATE
Governor Pawlenty stated in a interview this morning that the bridge had been labeled structurally deficient but no recommendation was made to shut it down and fix it. This be the crux of the matter of course.
Ed Morrissey has the interview:
Q: They’ve also lowered the confirmed death toll from 7 to 4. Are you aware of that, and if so, do you know why they’ve done that?
A: I was just informed of that, but I was somewhat perplexed, because just last night, they had certified, or I should say confirmed, seven fatalities. I can’t explain why it would be reduced overnight. ….
A: We had this bridge inspected in 2005 and 2006, and while there were some deficiencies noted, they did not call for closing or replacing the bridge immediately. This is a situation where had the engineers done that, obviously the bridge would have been closed. But that’s not the case. The designation that this bridge has is shared by 80,000 other bridges in the country, and some bridges even have a worse designation. These deficiencies did not rise to a level of closing the bridge or repairing or replacing it immediately, in the eyes of the experts who looked at it in the inspections.
As Ed notes, if the reports indicate that the bridge needed immediate work done on it and the local officials opted not to do it then they will obviously be blamed. If the state engineers missed how structurally deficient it was then they will be blamed.
But I’m still betting that the liberals will be blaming Bush and Iraq soon.
UPDATE II
As I guessed, these kind of comments started soon after the collapse. Webloggin did a good job of gathering some from KOS:
- We spend billions in Iraq While we fall apart at home.
- We have been warned by engineers that our nation’s infrastructure is in dire need of repair and upgrade.
Who needs terrorism when the inept GOP runs our nation into the ground. The “terrorists” can just sit back and watch as our nation falls apart.
Mission Accomplished. - the ironic thing is Martin Sabo is transportation chair in the house, and tried to get the state to put up 20 cents for each additional dollar the feds would have given us to improve/fix transportation. didn’t get done in part because w.a.t.b gov one-term-woulda-been Pawlenty didn’t want to raise taxes.
- Every week there’s a new national tragedy…tainted food, nutcases with automatic weapons, structural damage to cities, hospital patients dropped on the streets, dysfuctional transportation system, poorly cared for vets, trashed education system, national disasters from global warming. I am waiting for a national figure with the balls to call these warning signs what they are: Republican disdain for and neglect of government oversight,venality, insensitivity to human suffering, tax breaks for rich folks, blatant government incompetence, dirty politics, and bleeding our resources in an immoral fucking war.
- It is a terrorist attack by Republican budget cutters
- Fox had the story and great pictures before the others had anything on it. If this was not a horrible incident, I would have been suspicious just because it was Fox.
- Natalee Holloway must have been on the bridge
- FOX is reporting it because it bleeds, baby n/t
- I hate this that the thought that crosses my mind is “will they blame this on terrorists and use it to attack Iran?” “Is it a setup?”
- Infrastructure is failing and republicans control the purse strings, even in Minnesota. If this turns out to be related to faulty maintenance, impeachment of the responsible parties is indeed relevant.
- Other things going on: Bush invokes executive privilege on Rove testimony.
Fisher-Price recalls 1 million lead-tainted toys
US Marine found guilty of murdering Iraqi - Do you think……people will finally start putting 2+2 together?
We’ve been on a tax cut binge since Reagan. We stopped investing in the United States since the 1950’s. There is a Trillion $$$ war being waged. to top it off, bu$h wants to send someone to freakin’ MARS.
Yup, the answer to all lifes ills is to raise taxes and ensure we do not make war against enemies that make war on us.
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