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Bridge collapse

14K views 188 replies 65 participants last post by  David Loy 
#1 ·
The I5 bridge over the Skagit River has collapsed!!! Cars in the water. Every available aid unit from Snohomish County to Whatcom County are being called in to help. This is wild.

I just drove over the bridge a few hours ago. My wife was on the other bridge between Burlington and Mt. Vernon when it happened.
 
#7 ·
Time to invest in America's infrastructure. This is what happens when Republicans continue to block Obama's efforts to improve our infrastructure and put American's to work!!!!! :mad:
Are you fucking kidding me?! You asshole. There are people likely trapped in the water, some perhaps killed and all you can think about is turning this into some dumb ass political statement, fucking asshole!
 
#10 ·
Truly awful. There will be enough blame to go around, but a lot of our freeway is decades old and it'll cost a pretty penny to fix them up.

Silver lining is that if this happens 24hr later during Memorial Day weekend, likely a lot more people would be injured.
 
#19 ·
Keep it civil. Emergencies and tragedies bring out our emotions. Right now lets focus on the rescue and human element. No need to complicate things. I don't want to spend my evening reviewing catastrophic infrastructure reroute plans with red and blue bullshit.
 
#20 ·
Wow - there is no good alternative for the thousands of cars that travel across that bridge everyday.
I think i heard there were no fatalities but has there been any report on injuries.
 
#24 ·
Saw some pics, looks like 1 of multiple spans collaped. Looked like only two vehicles in the water and two guys sitting on the roofs. Could be it's not nearly as bad as it could have been.
There are two obvious vehicles in the river and one possible trailer. If it isn't a trailer, it doesn't look good for those inside. Upside down and broken. Scary. Sounds like the three people out of the two obvious vehicles were rescued. Conditions unknown.
 
#26 ·
While I obviously only know as much as any of you, the news copter shots didn't show a bunch of diving activity (or divers). Which indicates to me that there probably weren't other people to rescue. At least I hope that is the case. Like Kerry, I've driven over that bridge tens of thousands of times in my life. Crazy.

What a mess. I can't imagine how long it is going to take to replace that bridge, even if it is pushed to the top of the list. This is going to be a clusterfuck for the northwest (and especially skagit and whatcom counties) for a long while.

Interesting to hear that Seattle City Light was reducing the river flows at the dams to asist possible rescue efforts. One small bit of luck is that it happened when the flows were relatively mellow. This time of year, there could be a lot more water cranking in that river.
 
#31 ·
Well I drove up to B-Ham tonight to present to the 4-Corners group and just as I'm about to speak my wife tries calling. Hmmm? I think, she knows I'm giving a presentation tonight why would she call? Then she calls again and again and again and each time I just turn it off. Luckily someone let me know what was happening and the folks at the meeting let me take a quick break to call her back. I missed the collapse by about 30 minutes or so but to her that was way to close not to call to make sure I was ok. The drive home was fairly easy with little traffic really. Heck it was a lot better than tulip traffic for that matter.

I listened to the radio all the way home and the fact that at this point there are no fatalities seems amazing to me.
 
#33 ·
Well I drove up to B-Ham tonight to present to the 4-Corners group and just as I'm about to speak my wife tries calling. Hmmm? I think, she knows I'm giving a presentation tonight why would she call? Then she calls again and again and again and each time I just turn it off. Luckily someone let me know what was happening and the folks at the meeting let me take a quick break to call her back. I missed the collapse by about 30 minutes or so but to her that was way to close not to call to make sure I was ok. The drive home was fairly easy with little traffic really. Heck it was a lot better than tulip traffic for that matter.

I listened to the radio all the way home and the fact that at this point there are no fatalities seems amazing to me.
Ira gets extra bonus points for taking all this in stride and still delivering an excellent program for our club. Thanks Ira!
 
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