plagues,airlocks.Passover …

The events in the city where I was born were, of course, a lot less subtle and a lot more tragic. I’ve driven on the I-35W bridge many times, the last time being about a month ago, as the road work was already underway. This was one of the older bridges in the city but I never thought it was anywhere near being ready to collapse. But from what I understand, the collapse apparently began in a single spot and then cascaded from there. You might say this bridge’s design was like a chain – only as strong as its weakest link. I wonder, might MnDOT have been able to avert the disaster had they known where the weak spots were, and to avoid putting too much load on those spots at any one time, even if they had to close the bridge for a few hours a day to do it?

In any case, my heart goes out to my fellow Twin Cities residents, not just to the victims but those who were able to assist in the first few hours after the collapse. So far this is one of those trying times that’s brought out the best in people but not the worst. That’s a bright light in this dark moment.