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Recovery Efforts Continue in Minneapolis’ I-35W Bridge Collapse
Vehicles and possibly victims could be under the fragments of deck found around the scene of the I-35W bridge collapse
Elizabeth M. Taurasi and Sean Snyder -- Design News, August 7, 2007
Recovery efforts continue today to remove vehicles still trapped under the I-35W bridge and find any victims still missing from last Wednesday’s rush hour bridge collapse.
Yesterday investigators identified seven vehicles that fell from the bridge. Some additional vehicles could be buried under the massive amount of debris that fell when the bridge collapsed 60 feet into the Mississippi River below.
The debris is positioned in a very dangerous way as the collapsed bridge still continues to crumble, putting the rescue divers in harm’s way, according to Gene Corley,senior vice president of CTLGroup and an expert in structural engineering and evaluation.
“There is a great deal of risk because it is completely unknown as to how the debris is supported, and it definitely can shift at any time,” he says. “I really admire the divers that were down there trying to recover people because they were in great risk.”
Vehicles and possibly victims are thought to be under the fragments of deck found around the scene of the collapse as recovery teams and contractors hurry to set up equipment for the removal of tons of concrete and twisted steel.
Divers from the Navy and the FBI are still searching for eight people missing since the collapse. The FBI has been using a recovery submarine with a robotic arm to help search for accident victims.
While it’s still too early to determine what caused the collapse, experts from the NTSB have determined it did not start at the south end of the bridge and have moved their investigation to the north side to determine whether or not it was the source of the collapse. NTSB officials say they have also found a particular section of the bridge shifted during the collapse, which was abnormal under the circumstances.
Last week,Design News’ Calamities Editor Myron Boyajian speculated the collapse was due to failing trusses and opines that corrosion could have played a part in the collapse of the 40-year-old structure. He’s not the only one; the same suggestion has been made by structural and civil engineers speculating about the case across the Internet and in all media outlets.
Officials say the investigation could take as long as 18 months.
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