Workers search for bodies in bridge debris

Recalling the scene
Aron Dahlgren, 23, a University of Minnesota graduate student, was driving to his girlfriend’s home when the bridge began to fall. He noticed overhead road signs in front of him start to sink — and then his car plummeted.

“That’s the longest two or three seconds of your life,” Dahlgren said. “That was the scariest place. I kept on thinking — I kept on questioning, was this how I was going to die? If I’d have left 30 seconds earlier, I’d have been over the water.”

Jay Reeves was one of the first people on the scene after the collapse. He tried calling 911, but all the lines were jammed. Then, he heard the sounds of children’s screams from the school bus.

“I opened my car door and was greeted by the screams of lots of kids. Screaming kids are good. That means they’re alive and full of a lot of energy,” said Reeves, 39, a trained paramedic and the public safety coordinator for the Minnesota American Red Cross.

The children were sent back to his office, where he spoke to them and tried to calm them down while their parents were located. One frantic boy told him that his shoulder hurt, he said.

“I took his head in my hands and said ‘you need to calm down. Take a deep breath and hold it,”’ Reeves said.

No sign of terrorism
The Homeland Security Department said the collapse did not appear to be terrorism-related. Federal officials announced Thursday that $5 million would be rapidly released to help with efforts such as re-routing traffic around the disaster site.

The first step of the federal investigation will be to recover pieces of the bridge and reassemble them, kind of like a jigsaw puzzle, to try and determine what happened, NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker said.

Investigators also want to review video of the collapse. A team of 19 people was coming to the scene to help with the investigation, he said. Members of the public who took photos or video of the collapse were asked to call an NTSB hot line at (866) 328-6347.

Little impact on shipping
The bridge is blocks from the heart of Minneapolis, near tourist attractions such as the new Guthrie Theater and the Stone Arch Bridge. As the steamy night progressed massive crowds of onlookers circulated in the area on foot or bicycle, some of them wearing Twins T-shirts.

Thursday’s game between the Twins and Kansas City Royals was called off, but the Twins decided to go ahead with Wednesday’s rather than sending about 25,000 fans back out onto the congested highways. Inside the stadium, there was a moment of silence to honor victims.

The steel-arched bridge, built in 1967, rose 64 feet above the river and stretched 1,900 feet across the water. It was built with a single 458-foot-long steel arch to avoid the need for piers that might interfere with river navigation. The depth of the water underneath the bridge is between 4 to 14 feet, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.

The collapse was not expected to have a sizable impact on barge shipments of grain and freight. The stretch of the river is largely used by recreational boaters and seldom by shippers, who rely more on bigger locks south on the river, said Bill Gretten with the Army Corps of Engineers.

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