Case: Thirteen People Die as I-35W Bridge Collapses
The normally eight-lane I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis was very central to the city and was built in 1967. Two lanes were closed on August 1, 2007 for construction and cars were bumper-to-bumper at 6 p.m. with peak business traffic.
A worker on the bridge said there was suddenly a jolt, like on a roller coaster. The bridge buckled and totally collapsed. Fifty cars were in the river. News media and emergency services workers heard there was a bridge collapse and thought it was perhaps a footbridge. A biker approaching the area said a cloud of dust headed toward him, reminiscent of the dust cloud that spread swiftly after the World Trade Center buildings collapsed in New York in 2001. All found it incredulous that the second most traveled bridge in the city had collapsed.
One female survivor spoke about her car being submerged and how she kicked and hoped to survive; she came to the surface and was pulled to safety by a man who somehow found a broom nearby. Many other survivors were knocked unconscious briefly but came to and were rescued. A bus of schoolchildren was on the bridge and all were rescued.
After the dust settled, 190 persons were found to have been on the bridge when it fell, 13 died, 145 were injured. Around 30 miraculously walked away with no injuries.
A determination was made later that construction materials stockpiled on the bridge may have been a cause. As bridges go, it was not extremely old. The average life of a bridge is 42 years. President George W. Bush visited the site and talked to some heroes, those who effectively pulled others from danger.
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) identified 19 bridges in the U.S. out of 607,380 that are âmost structurally deficient.â These are considered the worst. Others not listed are slightly less deficient:
âą I-10 in Los Angeles at I-110
âą I-25 in Denver
âą I-76 in Camden, New Jersey
âą I S-695 in Baltimore, County, Maryland
âą Halma Street over Kapalama Canal in Honolulu
âą I-95 Jacksonville, Florida
âą I-278 approach to Verazano Bridge, Staten Island, New York
âą I-93 over Riverside Avenue, Medford, Massachusetts
âą I-290 over Salt Creek, Addison, Illinois
âą I-95 over Jefferson Blvd in Warwick, Rhode Island
âą I-35E over Pennsylvania Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota
âą I-15 over US 95 in Las Vegas
âą I-70 over Fisher Road in Columbus, Ohio
âą Second Blvd. over I-94, Wayne, Michigan.
âą I-65 ramp at River Road in Louisville, Kentucky
âą I-65 over City Street in Birmingham, Alabama
âą I-95 over state route 745 in New Haven, Connecticut.
âą Route 395 over George Washington Memorial Pkway, Arlington, Virginia
âą Pennsylvania Turnpike at S. York Road, Hatboro, Pennsylvania
All bridges must either be constantly maintained, replaced or closed to be safe.
Case: Rick Rescola and 9/11 Rescues
The tragedies of 9/11 marked a turning point in the perception of the word âcrisis,â especially to people in the United States who had never experienced such an attack on their own soil. The attacks were also a turning point in the perceptions of crisis management and crisis communications.
A crisis management/communications plan saved the lives of numerous people in the World Trade Center (WTC) on that fateful day. Rick Rescola was head of security for Morgan Stanley, which occupied 40 floors in one of the WTC towers. After the 1993 terrorist attack on the WTC, Rescola formed a crisis management team to try to avert an attack or to help employees survive another attack. The team members were in agreement that another attack would occur, and that it would probably occur at the WTC because of the symbolism of the towers being the tallest in the United States.
Team Rescola, as it was called, determined that the next attack would not be a ground attack, because the garage was protected after the 1993 incident. They eve...