Wednesday, August 01, 2007
We Can't Even Trust the Ground Beneath Our Feet
The I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul has collapsed. This is not how Minnesota wants to make national news. We first heard at 6:25 p.m. CST, while watching our local news - WCCO. At that time, Jason DeRusha, one of WCCO's reporters, broke in with a special report. It was obvious that he was shaken. He was calling in about the bridge collapse, but there wasn't any video from the scene at that point. We switched channels to the other Twin Cities stations - KARE 11 and KSTP Channel 5 - and saw the video. Holy crap! The entire bridge is flattened, with a portion in the river. The reports say that between 30 and 50 vehicles were involved. The earliest reports concentrated on a school bus, which had kids ages 8-14 returning from a field trip on it. One of the eyewitnesses had actually survived the accident - his vehicle fell around 50 feet - and he climbed out and was helping the kids out of the bus. Other eyewitnesses say that the bridge collapsed from both ends following a rumble. The news coverage seems to be revolving around the river section of the bridge, but from the video it appears that the bridge has collapsed over a couple of other sections of road. Hard to tell.
Hubby was on a chat forum when we first got the news and a lady from Portland, Oregon, had already heard. We were wondering how, because it was a local story. Hubby quickly checked MSNBC and CNN and both were covering the story.
Things are still being sorted out. Emergency vehicles are everywhere. There's been one confirmed death, from drowning. We still don't know, and probably won't for a while, if anyone was under the bridge.
An hour after the bridge collapse, which occurred at 6:09 p.m., the news reported that the FBI will be investigating to rule out terrorism, although after one of the newscasters read a portion of a 2006 report on the structural condition of the bridge, it is most likely that the cause of the collapse was structural damage. The bridge was having repair work done at the time, supposedly on the road deck. Hubby and I were hoping there weren't any construction workers underneath the bridge.
8: 35-8:38 p.m. - Wait . . . this just in . . . another section of the collapsed road was shown. This section had crushed a train. Also, there is a report that there were no construction workers underneath the bridge.
When a tragedy of this magnitude strikes this close to home, it's especially heart-wrenching. Our daughter was in the Twin Cities yesterday and today, but thankfully wasn't on I-35. We're sending our good wishes to all of those involved and are hoping that fatalities are minimal.
Correction (August 3, 2007): The bridge collapsed at 6:05 p.m.
Hubby was on a chat forum when we first got the news and a lady from Portland, Oregon, had already heard. We were wondering how, because it was a local story. Hubby quickly checked MSNBC and CNN and both were covering the story.
Things are still being sorted out. Emergency vehicles are everywhere. There's been one confirmed death, from drowning. We still don't know, and probably won't for a while, if anyone was under the bridge.
An hour after the bridge collapse, which occurred at 6:09 p.m., the news reported that the FBI will be investigating to rule out terrorism, although after one of the newscasters read a portion of a 2006 report on the structural condition of the bridge, it is most likely that the cause of the collapse was structural damage. The bridge was having repair work done at the time, supposedly on the road deck. Hubby and I were hoping there weren't any construction workers underneath the bridge.
8: 35-8:38 p.m. - Wait . . . this just in . . . another section of the collapsed road was shown. This section had crushed a train. Also, there is a report that there were no construction workers underneath the bridge.
When a tragedy of this magnitude strikes this close to home, it's especially heart-wrenching. Our daughter was in the Twin Cities yesterday and today, but thankfully wasn't on I-35. We're sending our good wishes to all of those involved and are hoping that fatalities are minimal.
Correction (August 3, 2007): The bridge collapsed at 6:05 p.m.
Labels: accident, bridge collapse, daughter, emergency, fbi, husband, I35W, minnesota, mississippi river, news, twin cities
Friday, July 27, 2007
Good Question
WCCO, one of the major Twin Cities television stations, has a segment with reporter Ben Tracy called "Good Question." Viewers are invited to email their good questions and Ben tries to find the answers, which are broadcast on the ten o'clock news. The kids and I are always thinking of good questions, but thus far hadn't submitted any . . . until today. I was calling someone long distance yesterday and wondered, why do we have to dial a "1" before long distance phone numbers? So, I submitted my question to Ben Tracy. We'll see if I get a response.
Labels: ben tracy, good question, kids, minnesota, news, telephone number, wcco
Thursday, February 01, 2007
News Aggregators
For those of you in the know about blogging and news aggregators, feel free to skip this post. For those of you still getting your feet wet on all this blogging stuff (and I know there are a few of you), I wanted to send you a friendly post that explains how I keep track of the blogs I like. You know how the newspaper or a news show puts together a bunch of stories that they present to you? Well, the internet has a way for you to do this with blogs. There are websites that serve as news aggregators. With a news aggregator, you sign up for the blogs you like as you find them and the aggregator will let you know when there are new posts to the blogs on your list. This is very convenient for those blogs that aren't updated regularly. Aggregators also make it easy to scan through many blogs and posts quickly, just like scanning the headlines of a newspaper. The news aggregator I use is Bloglines, but there are many, many more out there. Here's one list of them, along with the Wikipedia definition of a news aggregator. Happy blog surfing!
Labels: blog, bloglines, internet, news, news aggregator
Friday, December 29, 2006
Social Computing
For quite some time now, using a computer has been a solo experience. Sort of a personal productivity machine - one screen, one keyboard. As more interactive programs and websites have popped up and taken over, it is not uncommon to find several people huddled in front of a computer screen. While watching House Hunters on HGTV the other day, I saw a family of four sitting at a table, each with a laptop, looking for properties. My daughter joked that they were probably IMing each other. People have been predicting the demise of social activities because of computer technology and the Internet, but it's not happening. It may have been happening for a while, but human beings simply can't live without other human beings, so the pendulum is swinging back.
In a related story, there was a discussion on MPR today about the changes in media and news broadcasting brought about by the shift to digital media. The prediction was that people would only seek out the stuff they were interested in if there weren't newspapers or broader TV programs that gave people a well-rounded bunch of stories. While I could argue that much of what is presented as news today isn't particularly well-rounded, what strikes me about this is the lack of faith in the ability of humans to search for stuff outside their direct interests. People get bored really quickly, so once something gets old, it gets old, and we start looking for new stuff. Also, as mentioned above, we are social creatures. If I don't happen to hear a particular news story, there's a sure bet that my husband, my children, or my friends have heard it and will pass it along. We're talking the Internet, here, folks. We are not living in fully separated cardboard boxes with blinders on and earplugs in. The news will get through.
In a related story, there was a discussion on MPR today about the changes in media and news broadcasting brought about by the shift to digital media. The prediction was that people would only seek out the stuff they were interested in if there weren't newspapers or broader TV programs that gave people a well-rounded bunch of stories. While I could argue that much of what is presented as news today isn't particularly well-rounded, what strikes me about this is the lack of faith in the ability of humans to search for stuff outside their direct interests. People get bored really quickly, so once something gets old, it gets old, and we start looking for new stuff. Also, as mentioned above, we are social creatures. If I don't happen to hear a particular news story, there's a sure bet that my husband, my children, or my friends have heard it and will pass it along. We're talking the Internet, here, folks. We are not living in fully separated cardboard boxes with blinders on and earplugs in. The news will get through.
Labels: computer, daughter, family, house hunters, husband, media, mpr, news, technology
