Unbelievable

It's finally starting to sink in that the bridge is gone.

After I dropped Evan off at the radio station for his show, I had to take the Washington Avenue bridge (two bridges down from 35W) across the river. While I was crossing, Marine One (that Presidential helicopter) flew close to me on its way to the wreckage. As my eyes followed it, I saw part of the wreckage. Only a small section of the northern part was visible-part of the "V". It was kind of shocking seeing an image that I've seen on TV. Up until that point, I had only seen the wreckage on all the news coverage. It still seemed far away. But seeing it in real life was very...odd.

I turned on to River Road and saw that people had parked their cars and were standing and trying to peer into the woods on the bluff. I saw an empty parking spot and went to go see what they were looking at. Marine One had landed at the park across the river and the President was getting into his motorcade to (I'm guessing) go on the closed-to-normal-traffic 10th Avenue bridge to survey the damage. You couldn't really see any of the wreckage due to the curve of the river and the woods on the bluff.

I drove through the Dinkytown/Marcy-Holmes neighborhoods (neighborhoods surrounding the U. 35W is the dividing line of the two areas) and when I crossed over 35W and looked west, my jaw just dropped. Except for the lack of normal traffic and all the police and news vans, it looked normal-the construction barrels were still there, they had just finished paving the on-ramp a few days before. Normal until you got to the start of where the bridge was. There was a sudden drop off and then that piece that's sticking straight up blocked my view of anything else. Once I got to the end of the overpass, I could see the west side of the bridge that's just dangling. I just felt sick to my stomach-partly because of the destruction and partly because of the mass of news vans. I'm only allowed to watch the coverage in the morning, other than that, I avoid it. It's hard at work though. There are flat panel screens that show CNN all day in the elevator lobbies. I saw one "special report" that had the name "The Road to Ruin" plastered across a full span shot of the wreckage. I wanted to find that person that designed it and just smack them. And then Nancy Grace was crying "Terrorism!" within hours of the collapse, even though it was clearly not. My dislike of sensationalist news coverage is at a new all-time high. I lived in Dinkytown/Marcy-Holmes for about five years and it's strange seeing pictures of my old neighborhood with dramatic captions. Especially some of the arial shots that show my old apartment buildings on both sides of the river and the park where I hid my first letterbox.

After doing the errands that I was going to do on Wednesday (the errands that would have put me on the bridge on or near the time it fell), I took the Central Avenue bridge across (it's one bridge to the north of 35W). I couldn't see any of the wreckage, but it was very strange looking over and seeing the 10th Avenue bridge that used to be hidden behind 35W. It was like 35W had never crossed the river there. I drove past the Guthrie and the new Gold Mill Park. People were standing on the hill in the park, watching the meeting with the President and the recovery. There were parents with kids on their shoulders, little ones in strollers, people who had been walking their dog and just decided to stop and watch. It reminded me of when people would pack picnics to go watch a battle. I took the Washington Avenue overpass of 35W and looked east. It looked like nothing had happened. Granted, the highway was empty except for police cars and construction barrels, but since that end has a bit of an up-hill climb, it looked pretty much normal. I couldn't see the wreckage on the other side. It just sloped up and that was it.

I'm happy (it seems wrong to be happy about that-people are still missing) that the number of missing people dropped. There were two people from work (not in my department) who were on the bridge, one is shaken, but fine and the other is in the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. I hope Lisascenic's friend is ok. I still can't watch the news without crying, but life is returning to normal. I now live in the Uptown area of Minneapolis, which is about a mile from the bridge, and when Evan and I went out to dinner last night, no one was talking about it and the TVs in the bar/pizza place were tuned to the Discovery Channel and the Twins Game. I think I'm having a hard time getting used to it because I could have been on the bridge. I keep asking myself those dangerous and pointless "What if" questions. What if I had decided to do my errands that day? What if I had let Evan borrow the car to go to the video store? (I would never forgive myself if he had been on the bridge) What if the cats had a vet appointment and I was taking them home from it? Would I have been able to save them? What if it had fallen on Monday when Evan and I were stuck in the same rush hour traffic at about the same time on the bridge? I'm keeping busy and try to stop those questions from running through my head. Nothing is going to get accomplished if I dwell on it. Luckily, we have Evan's 7 year old sister spending the day with us and we'll be busy entertaining her (and we'll avoid the collapse area-I don't know if his dad and stepmom have talked to her about what happened). And (it sounds really dorky), I'm kind of getting excited to see what the new bridge will look like. I know it's a few years off, but will they still make it with no center pier? It probably won't be steel and concrete, what will they make it out of? Will it be all cool and modern looking to fit with the Gehry designed art museum near by and the new ultra-modern Guthrie Theater?

It'll be interesting to say the least.