Shocked and Angry

[copper_rose]

Hello...yes, am alive and so is everyone I know, though a friend of mine had just crossed the 35W Bridge here in Minneapolis not 10-15 minutes before it collapsed. Watched in horror when I got home that night and turned on the tv

Comments

[hippediva]

AMEN! First, I'm so glad you're ok! I had forgotten how close you are! *hugs* Secondly, you're SO right! Wasn't it Ben Franklin who said a nation who relinquishes liberty for security deserves neither?

[amberlion]

So well said. The bridge should not have been allowed to get so bad. Now people are dead. Nothing can ever make that right.

I'm so glad you're okay.

[iibnf]

I'm glad you're okay. That was such a shocking thing to see. And when you consider that in England there are buildings and structures still up and standing and being used that date back many, many, many thousands of years, it's pretty awful that such a new bridge falls down. Seriously shoddy, cheap work! I'm amazed and relieved that not more people were hurt.

[lurkitty]

I am very glad you're okay. I was concerned about you!

We have thousands of bridges in Oregon - there must be upwards of 20 in Portland alone. One of the world's longest bridges is in Astoria. A day rarely goes by that I don't cross a bridge. What happened in Minneapolis is sobering, indeed.

[aureantes]

There are only two ways to respond to disasters that show up flaws in the system -- ignore the flaws and call the situation tragic-but-exceptional, or fix the damn system so that it works.

(Or of course, there's the third option of fixing the damn system so that it works even less effectively for its intended purpose....like 'shrinking the government' until it's practically useless to the citizenry it was intended to serve...)

At any rate, the lines are certainly being drawn -- as with most disasters, I hope the current clarity and prioritizing of values lasts longer than a fortnight in the public's attention span.