I was jogging along the SE University Ave towards downtown Minneapolis this afternoon after classes. The I35W bridge across the Mississippi River literally gave way right in front of my eyes, in one sense right under my feet.

It was kinda weird at the moment. I was crossing the I35W through the SE University Ave over-passing. It is right above the I35W, and 180 yards east to the first bridge segment that collapsed. I noticed that the bridge seemed to be under construction with half of the lanes were open to traffic. Construction materials could be seen every where. So the rumbling sound (it continued for around 15-20 seconds) followed by dust rising up didn't even draw my attention. A cyclist stopped and watched to the sound. Then he stopped me. "The bridge just collapsed". I looked at what appeared to be where the sound came from, but only saw dusts dispersing out. All the construction signs and road blocks and materials made you think the sound and dusts were something 'normal' on a construction site. In contrary to some witnesses' account that they felt earthquake-like shaking, I didn't feel any shaking. Then (half minute later) there was a pick up truck driven by a construction worker climbed slowly up the bridge, and stopped as if he came specifically for it. He got out of the truck, with that puzzling look, walked up with me and a couple of others to check out the scene. It almost looked and felt that the construction worker came at a well timed manner because he was driving so slow and arrived right at the time. As we were literately on the bridge, we actually couldn't see what had really happened. The only thing in our sight was one bridge segment on the right side (east bound to the downtown) folded towards us, and the next segment, also on the right side folded the other way on top of two cargo trains. The left side of the bridge seemed to be okay.

With the bumper to bumper traffic in all lanes, there were cars that barely missed the drop by a few yards, and many more by a couple of minutes. The overwhelming atmosphere at the scene was not panic, maybe not even shock, but a lot of confusion. There must be dozens or more drivers and other people from this (eastern) side watched as the bridge collapsed, but there was absolutely no screaming, nor running around. For a couple of minutes, all the cars just stayed still in 'queue'. Then an old lady in a van reluctantly made a three point turn. However, the rest of cars were still sitting still. No one got out of their cars. With wind blowing towards us, soon we were covered by yellow dusts. Ducts came in the mouth too, which made it a quick connection to the TV scene of 9/11.

Then I realized we could get down to a lower level, so I raced one block north to got to the ground where the segment of bridge folded onto. Many construction workers worked there in a big warehouse like structure, and they already pulled all the people out from the cars fallen this way. There were about 6 or 7 cars, SUVs and a pickup truck piled on the ground beneath the broken bridge. Amazingly, when we got down (at most 2 minutes after it happened), all occupants of the vehicles had been pulled out by the workers. That's the most heroic action I had seen over the eventful night, although I didn't actually 'see' how they did it. The bridge did not seem to be stable at all. It's one thing to observe from aside, but totally another thing to get beneath the hanging structure to search each car and make sure on one was left behind. Hat off to the crews.

Only one twenty-some young man was laid down on a big white plastic pad. I didn't see anything like blood, but it seemed he was the only one that got injured. We still couldn't see what had really happened, as the cargo trains were blocking our view. By all account, it looks as a serious, but limited scale accident. More construction crews emerged on the scene, one of whom went close the train told us the bridge had collapsed 'all the way to the water'. We were shocked in disbelief, but soon it turned out to be misinformation. It was worse. Then more people came that way told us the bridge had collapsed all the way 'across the river'!

By this time some policemen, also in confusing look arrived at the scene. They drove on the bridge, looked down at the piled vehicles in silence. The workers yelled at them, 'all the cars had been cleared, no person there'. A few minutes later, the first fire truck rushed in. A single fire fighter jumped out of the truck, carrying all his gears rushed directly to where the bridge had just folded as it had been rehearsed many times. At the time, no one was paying attention to the young man who was still laying on the ground. He was completely ignored by the police and the fire fighters. I stood there a few more minutes, then decided to went back campus to grab my camera. When I left, 2 ambulances finally came that way. Hope the best with the young man.

I came back to the bridge approximately 25 minutes later with a camera. By the time, the police already set up a road block. The rest of the story will be best told by pictures in this album. All in all, the 7 miles 'routine' jogging took me 3 hours and 17 minutes (when I returned campus through Washington Avenue bridge).