Oakland, California
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Transportation
Lake Street Bridge Collapse, Minneapolis, 1989
The current Lake Street Bridge replaced the previous bridge, a wrought-iron span built in 1889. The previous bridge was the second-oldest bridge in use over the Mississippi, next to the Eads Bridge in St. Louis, Missouri (built in 1874). At the time, the Minneapolis Tribune opined that the new bridge was a "foolish extravagance," since there were already seven bridges over the river. However, the Lake Street Bridge became a major connection between Minneapolis and St. Paul. Before the construction of the freeway system, it carried U.S. Route 212 over the Mississippi River.
When construction on the new bridge started in 1989, the builders built the first half of the new bridge while keeping the old bridge in service. Unfortunately, an accident ended up delaying construction. The falsework for one of the arches collapsed, causing the arch itself to collapse and killing a construction worker. Later, when it came time to demolish the old bridge, crews tried to take it down with explosives, but the first effort didn't bring the bridge down. It took another, more powerful batch of explosives to bring the old bridge down a few weeks later.
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35W Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis
The eight-lane bridge on Interstate 35W, part of a major artery between Minneapolis and St. Paul, was being repaired at the time, and a witness told MSNBC that he had heard a jackhammer being used on the roadway just before the collapse about 6 p.m. Central time. Witnesses said the bridge, which was built in 1967, collapsed in three sections, sending a plume of smoke 100 feet into the sky.
The collapsed section of the bridge, which was about 1,000 feet long, had been supported by a steel structure.
Divers and rescue boats continued to search the river and the twisted wreckage of the bridge, with darkness setting in and rain beginning to fall. The Minneapolis Star Tribune said some people were seen floundering in the river, calling for help.
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Nobody Uses Minium Anymore
It was he, Courtail des Pereires, who had obtained the second driving license for racing cars issued in France. Over the desk we had his diploma in a gold frame and his photograph as a young man at the wheel of a monster, with the date and the rubber stamps. The end had been tragic . . . He often told me about it.
"I was lucky," he admitted. "Take it from me. We were coming into Bois-le-Duc . . . the carburation was perfect . . . I didn't even want to slow down . . . I catch sight of the schoolteacher . . . she had climbed up on the embankment . . . She motioned to me . . . She'd read all my books . . . She waved her parasol . . . I didn't want to be rude . . . I threw on my brakes outside the school . . . In a minute I'm surrounded, fêted . . . I take a drink . . . I wasn't supposed to stop again before Chartres . . . another ten miles . . . The last control station . . . I invite the young lady to come along . . . 'Climb in, mademoiselle,' I say . . . 'Climb in beside me. Come along.' She was cute. She hesitated, she shilly-shallied, she coquetted some . . . I pressed her . . . So she sits down beside me and off we go . . . All day long, at every control station, there'd been cider and more cider . . . My machine as really humming, running fine . . . I didn't dare to make any more stops . . . But I needed to bad . . . Finally I had to give in . . . So I throw on the brakes . . . I stop the car, I stand up, I spot a bush . . . I leave the chick at the wheel. 'Wait for me,' I sing out, 'I'll be back in a second . . .' I'd hardly touched a finger to my fly when so help me I'm stunned! Lifted off my feet! Dashed through the air like a straw in a gale! Boom! Stupendous! A shattering explosion! . . . The trees, the bushes all around, ripped up! mowed down! blasted! The air's aflame! I land at the bottom of a crater, almost unconscious . . . I feel myself . . . I pull myself together . . . I crawl to the road . . . A total vacuum! The car? . . . Gone, my boy . . . A vacuum! No more car! Evaporated! Demolished! Literally! The wheels, the chassis . . . oak! Pitchpine! All ashes! . . . The whole frame . . . Oh well! . . . I drag myself around, I scramble from one heap of earth to the next . . . I dig . . . I rummage . . . A few fragments here and there . . . a few splinters . . . A little piece of fan, a belt buckle. One of the caps of the gast tank . . . A hairpin . . . That was all . . . A tooth that I've never been sure about . . . The official investigation proved nothing . . . explained nothing . . . What would you expect? . . . The causes of that terrible conflagration will remain forever a mystery . . . Almost two weeks later in a pond, six hundred yards from the spot, they found . . . after a good deal of dredging . . . one of the young lady's feet, half devoured by the rats.
"For my part, though I can't claim to be absolutely certain, I might in a pinch accept one of the numerous hypotheses advanced at the time to explain that fire, that incredible explosion . . . it's possible that imperceptibly, little by little, one of our 'long fuses' shook loose . . . When you come to think of it, it would suffice for one of those thin minium rods, shaken by thousands of bumps and jolts, to come into contact for only a second . . . for a tenth of a second . . . with the gasoline nipples . . . The whole shebang would explode instantly! Like melinite! Like a shell! Yes, my boy, the mechanism was mighty precarious in those days. I went back to the place a long time after the disaster . . . There was still a charred smell . . . At that critical stage in the development of the automobile, I might add, a number of these fantastic explosions were reported . . . almost as powerful! Everything pulverized! Horribly scattered in all directions! Propelled through the air for miles! . . . If pressed for a comparison, the only thing I can think of is certain sudden explosions of liquid air . . . And even there I have my reservations . . . Those things are commonplace! Perfectly easy to explain . . . from start to finish . . . beyond the shadow of a doubt. Whereas my tragedy remains an almost complete mystery . . . We may as well admit it in all modesty. But what importance has that today? None whatever. Fuses haven't been used in ages. Such speculation only impedes progress . . . Other problems demand our attention . . . a thousand times more interesting! Ah, my boy, that was a long time ago . . . Nobody uses minium anymore . . . Nobody!"
-- Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Death on the Installment Plan, tr. Ralph Manheim (New York: New Directions, 1966), 335-37.
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