Smithers MINNEAPOLIS

Remember it vividly. I was in Nice. I woke up and turned on Ch 3, listening to French news report on a bridge collapse in Minneapolis.

Naturally, I was at the track…

Myself and family were in our van crossing the 10th Avenue bridge at 6:05pm. Thank God my husband didn’t listen to me that evening to take 35W. We were on our way to visit my Dad in the hospital. He saved our lives that day.

Dave turned off the right turn signal to turn onto 4th Street to get to 35W and said, “I’m taking a back route, look at that traffic”. As we crossed the 10th Ave bridge a huge plume of dirt flew up next to us. “Something just fell,” Dave said. We thought something fell off the bridge from the construction. As the dirt started to settle we saw the entire bridge in the water. As we slowed down I could see the bread delivery truck pinned beneath the bridge and I knew that that person was in trouble. Instead of stopping to look, Dave’s instinct was to get off the 10th Ave bridge asap. We pulled over right next to the highway and I hysterically called 911, I got through and they were aware of the situation. When we got out of our van is was eerily quiet. Dave walked out onto the highway and out to where the road ended, a shear drop down to the water. He wasn’t able to get to anyone. Then I smelled smoke. He came back towards the van and directed the cars to turn around and get off the highway because you could hear sirens coming from every direction and some folks weren’t aware that the bridge was gone. He also told me the bread semi was on fire. Needless to say I was doing my fair share of crying and hyper-ventilating.

Because we had our 5 year old daughter with us we didn’t take any risks. The police began to arrive and asked us to leave the area in case the bridge approach sections were to collapse a well. We were shell shocked and found a t.v. at Riverside hospital to watch the news. When we saw the shots from above of the scene we were in complete shock.

We eventually made it to visit my Dad in the hospital. I called him right after I called 911 to let him know what had happened, he didn’t quite comprehend what I was telling him, “the whole bridge fell down? Well, take your time and take care of yourselves, in fact you should go home.” I told him that we may be late. He had the news on in his room when we arrived, and he was very glad to see us when we walked in.

I had crossed that bridge 3 times earlier in the day and was worried by the fact that there were huge sections of concrete missing, large water and cement trucks parked on the bridge and, I thought about the guys out there working and what a dangerous place they were but they wouldn’t be out there if it wasn’t safe for them to work, would they?

We attended this afternoon’s memorial, it was very respectful however there wasn’t a huge turnout. I guess it’s no longer the flavor of the month.

We have a bit of survivor’s guilt, we feel like we should have done more. I wanted to be on that bridge but Dave refused to sit in highway traffic. We witnessed 13 people die a year ago today and we will forever remember them and that day.

Give your loved ones extra hugs and kisses every day.

Thanks for reading,
trish

I was at Lake Calhoun having biked there from my home in Minnetonka.

I had stopped along the trail to take a call from a friend in Milwaukee who told me later that she almost called me back when she saw the news just to make sure that by some chance the trail I was on didn’t go under or near the bridge.

Once I got to Lake Calhoun I checked the radar on my phone because I knew storms were coming and I might not make it home.

I called my wife to ask her to be ready to put the rack on the back of the truck and come get me if I called back. She interupted me to tell me that every TV channel was covering the bridge collapse.

It was a beautiful, sunny day which seemed ironic having been told that, and assuming that it was probable that many had just lost their lives.

I thought about biking down there to see if there was anything that could be done but also remembered the storms (which ended up just missing us as I recall).

Off in the distance I could hear sirens.

I had been on that bridge in the days before the collapse and would have been on it two days later for an appointment in the North metro.

Not to blow any more air in his balloon, but I also recall Smithers had some of the best coverage of the event.

I was on a ride and had just passed under that bridge about 45 minutes earlier!

Getting rum.