The I-35W Mississippi River bridge (officially known as Bridge 9340) was an eight-lane, steel truss arch bridge that carried Interstate 35W across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. During the evening rush hour on August 1, 2007, it suddenly collapsed, killing 13 people and injuring 145. The bridge was Minnesota's fifth busiest, carrying 140,000 vehicles daily. The NTSB cited a design flaw as the likely cause of the collapse, and asserted that additional weight on the bridge at the time of the collapse contributed to the catastrophic failure.
Immediately after the collapse, help came from mutual aid in the seven county Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area and emergency response personnel, charities, and volunteers. Within a few days of the collapse, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) planned a replacement bridge, the I-35W Saint Anthony Falls Bridge. Construction was completed rapidly, and it opened on September 18, 2008.
Read more about I-35W Mississippi River Bridge: Location and Site History, Design and Construction, Maintenance and Inspection, Collapse, Replacement Bridge
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“Listen, my friend, I’ve just come back from Mississippi and over there when you talk about the West Bank they think you mean Arkansas.”
—Patrick Buchanan (b. 1938)
“We are bare. We are stripped to the bone
and we swim in tandem and go up and up
the river, the identical river called Mine
and we enter together. No one’s alone.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“In bridge clubs and in councils of state, the passions are the same.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)