Such a horrifying disaster in Minneapolis. When I heard about it I thought, oh no, not another bridge disaster. They seem to happen once in a generation. It's the realization of bad dreams experienced by many of us who never feel comfortable crossing large spans.
I've been impressed by the city's very competent officials as they discuss the latest details on television, and we're also hearing about how much help they're getting from volunteers. They all exhibit the right Minnesota stuff as exemplified in the writings of Garrison Keillor.
There's a bridge in Canada that gives me the willies every time we cross it. It's the Burlington Bridge and goes way high over water near Hamilton. Here it is and it is a beauty, but to cross it you have to drive up a very high and long ramp--like climbing up into the sky.
I found a good picture of the Burlington but I don't yet know how to insert photos here. Must learn.
Bridge disasters have taken on a mythology of their own. One of the most famous is the Tay Bridge Disaster near Dundee in Scotland in 1879. The bridge fell during a violent hurricane and an entire train fell into the river Tay estuary taking 90 victims to their deaths still in their railway cars. This was a new bridge, over two miles long, and was opened with lots of hoopla as one of the great structures of the Victorian age. It lasted about a year
Oddles of websites. The attached shows how the media told the story in 1880. Surprisingly similar in spite of having to use drawings instead of photography/. Here's the link:
http://www.dundeecity.gov.uk/disaster/main.htm.
A bad poet wrote an epic poem. Here are the first lines:
Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away,
On the last Sabbath day of 1879
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.
Then there's The Bridge at St. Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder. But that's fiction.
Alas! I am very sorry to say
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