I35 in Minneapolis, just scant blocks from my old apartment, collapsed yesterday. I couldn't get through to my old roommate and coworker until this morning. Apparently she missed being there by twenty minutes because she was held up at work.
This really upset me. I shouldn't have watched the video, I guess, but it felt like this was happening in my home town. I did live in the Twin Cities for many years so I guess it is as close to home as anywhere else. They still haven't recovered all the bodies from the river. I'm glad more people didn't die. Of course the Republican governor vetoed a bill last year that would help fix bridges. It wouldn't have prevented this collapse, but at least they'd have had the funding to do more research into how unstable these bridges were becoming. It's not a blame game, but it still makes me furious that happened. I'm also furious that Herr Leader Bush used the press conference about the collapsing bridge to go on and on about how the Democratic congress is holding up his spending bill for the illegal occupation of Iraq. It's shameful. Shameful. It's like Katrina all over again, a bunch of white asshole males congratulating each other for doing nothing over the bodies of the dead.
Thank goodness that your friend was held up. The most unnerving thing about LIFE is that wrong place at the wrong time thing.
ReplyDeleteI have been watching this off and on since last night and it makes me wonder how the hell a structure like that could collapse without an earthquake Apparently there have been workers there for weeks...what, if anything, could they have done to precipitate the collapse? WHY WHY WHY?
Bush is an absolute master of making things even worse than they already are. With his ratings in the 20s Rove will have needled him into looking like the guiding, concerned Father Figure but it completely backfired and brought the ghost of Katrina screaming back to haunt us. What a horrible senseless waste of life.
Again the 24/7 media frenzy is so out of hand...need to feed the machine...let those people do their jobs and stay the hell out of their way. The newscasters seem to be under the impression that by embedding themselves in the thick of it that this will vicariously thrust them into the drama and bestow some sort of heroic dimension upon them..bu most of them look like jackals running in and the image I saw of an ambulance worker telling the camerman to get the hell out of the way sums it up for me.
Very scary.
Very scary indeed. Glad your friends are ok. I watched a bit of it on CNN last night but had to change the channel. I can't let the kids see the destruction etc. Makes you really think and hold loved one's even closer.
ReplyDeleteI'm amazed this doesn't happen more often. Horrible...
ReplyDeleteWhy can't nation-building start at home?