Bridges Falling Down

Minneapolis I-35W Bridge Collapse, originally uploaded by Diversey.

Collapsed 35W Interstate Highway Bridge in Minneapolis, originally uploaded by photog37.

Wednesday evening we started hearing news about the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis that collapsed during rush hour.

But doesn't anyone remember, the day before, the news story about a freeway bridge in California that collapsed? (Here it is, from USA Today.)

I haven't heard any news coverage that mentioned the incidents together. I could have missed it, I'm not consuming a ton of news. And the tragedy of the Minneapolis collapse far outweighs the one in California. But it seems very strange that there were two bridges that collapsed just a day apart.

Then my mind spins back to the year or two following Nine-Eleven, and everyone was trying to out-guess the next thing The Terrorists would do. At some point, bridges became the thing we should worry about. And Portland being Bridgetown, we had plenty of potential targets to pin our worries to. "Though there is no specific threat at this time," they said.

As I expected, among the first reports yesterday about the I-35 bridge, there was a statement from Homeland Security that "there is no evidence that this is an act of terrorism."

But the fact that we were worried about it.... -=-

originally uploaded by Whateverthing