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State Representative Michael Beard
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-8872
For more information contact: Jodi Boyne 651-296-0640
HOUSE BRIEFS
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Friends,
As the emergency crews continue their efforts to recover victims of Wednesday’s tragedy, here are ways you can help:
Give blood - Call the Twin Cities Red Cross at 1-GIVE-LIFE or Memorial Blood Centers at 1-888-GIVE-BLD.
Donate money - Financial donations earmarked "Disaster Relief" may be sent to The Salvation Army at 2445 Prior Ave., Roseville, MN 55113 or by calling 1-800-SAL-ARMY. To donate online, go to www.salarmy.org Monetary donations can also be sent to the American Red Cross at: American Red Cross - Twin Cities Area Chapter, NW 5597, P.O. Box 1450, Minneapolis, MN 55485-5597. Finally, The United Way has an established protocol for handling donations. They work with state and local officials by consolidating offers of emergency assistance and making them known to responders. Contact the United Way’s 211 hotline for donations. Just dial 2-1-1 or 651-291-0211.
Rebuilding the bridge is expected to take years. Until then, please be aware of alternate routes and road closures. Here is a brief rundown: Northbound traffic on 35W will be diverted to eastbound 94. The detour will take you to Hwy 280 which will take you back to 35W, just prior to the Hwy 36 interchange. Southbound traffic on 35W is closed south of Stinson Blvd and all ramps to southbound 35W are closed between Stinson and the river. MnDOT has a detour graphic posted at http://www.dot.state.mn.us/ which I encourage you to print out and keep handy if you travel in the affected area.
On Monday morning I will tour the site along with legislative leaders, other members of the House and Senate transportation committees and members of the Minneapolis legislative delegation. I expect this and the overall topic of transportation infrastructure to be a major focus of our work in the 2008 session and beyond.
“Structurally deficient” has become a household term since the bridge collapsed but there is a lot of confusion about what it actually means. According to Tom Everett of the National Bridge Inspection Program, the term is not an indication as to the bridge’s level of safety. Simply put, it means that a bridge has conditions that need to be monitored or repaired and – from what we know right now – that appears to be what was happening. The 2007 inspection was set to be completed after the deck resurfacing project was completed. The 2006 and 2005 inspections found “no evidence of additional cracking in the bridge or growth in the pre-existing cracks.”
Obviously something went terribly wrong. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will handle the investigation. The NTSB is the same organization that handles airplane crashes. Like those investigations, the NTSB will comb over every square inch of rubble looking for clues that indicate what might have caused the catastrophe. It might be a long time before the agency can pinpoint the cause, but when it does, it will make the necessary recommendations to prevent a similar collapse from ever happening again.
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