Blogging the Bridge Collapse Aftermath
I'm frankly a little overdosed on this whole thing. Not like I've been on the scene, but it's exhausting to spend a lot of your day on the internet and in front of the tv and next to the radio, constantly taking in information on a tragedy like this.
I've shifted from the news (aside from MPR) to following the blog reaction to it. Metroblogging has gotten quite a bit of attention. Julio Ojeda-Zapata, the tech writer for the Pioneer Press has covered it (pasted after the jump, since that link will break in about a week). I fielded a Twitter from Jon Gordon and ended up in today's episode of Future Tense.
Missy and I have talked about the strangeness of the personal gain that comes from an event like this. Because something really terrible happened to set this all in motion. I can't occupy the "reporting" and "reflecting" spaces in my brain at the same time. What I've been doing for Metroblogging is just trying to compile info. I'll editorialize and grieve later. At the risk of sounding self-important, Metroblogging served as a good conduit of information for people at a time when people wanted to know what was going on. I'm glad we could do that.
For as much as I've driven on and under that bridge and seen all the pictures, it occurs to me that I'm having a hard time really appreciating the scale of this. What does a highway really look like laying in the middle of a river? I'll wait until the recovery effort is complete before I go over there.
I've now driven into downtown twice since this happened. Both times I looked at the Minneapolis skyline and felt intensely relieved that it was all still there.
In the mean time, there's an art fair and a Fringe Festival going on. And I'm going to Iowa for the first time ever (meh) for my co-workers' wedding. Not sure on the mechanism of this connection, but I'm feeling really in love with this place lately. Part of it's due to the awesomeness of my personal life (relative to the previous 29 years), but I'm also feeling very connected to Minneapolis right now.
Internet becomes lifeline, record
Bloggers log on to connect with loved ones, share details and photos
BY JULIO OJEDA-ZAPATA
Pioneer Press
TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press
Article Last Updated:08/02/2007 01:39:05 AM CDT
Noah Kunin was one of the hundreds of bloggers who posted about Wednesday's freeway-bridge collapse in Minneapolis as the Internet lit up with information and reaction in the disaster's immediate aftermath.
But his post carried additional weight because of where he said he happened to be.
"I live the closest to the 35W Bridge than anyone in Minneapolis and I watched it come down from my roof," Kunin said on Blanked-Out at blanked-out.com. "Description of collapse: Surprisingly quiet, but my entire warehouse apt shook quite a bit. Bridge fell so very slowly - poof."
The Web became a crucial clearinghouse in the hours after the accident, as it has in this country for a decade following major disasters, though this time there were unique local twists.
Erica Mauter, for instance, found out about the bridge collapse via Twitter. The relatively new and popular "microblogging" site, usually reserved for cheeky and banal mini-posts ("sunburn from this weekend is starting to peel"), erupted in the Twin Cities on Wednesday as local users tweet-ed almost exclusively about the accident.
"I'm okay, in case anyone was wondering," wrote Mauter, a local Twitter regular, one of many who hastened to reassure their online pals that they had not perished or been injured in the freeway disaster. They also rushed to account for all their loved ones. "Trying to get in touch with folks," Mauter wrote.
"For anyone who might have heard the news, and wondered if we were okay ..." an area woman nicknamed "shannrarose'' wrote on her LiveJournal blog, "yes, we are. I would have been scared to death if it'd happened before Paul got home. I'm not used to the city enough to know the route he takes all that well, and all I'd have known was that he does take 35W part of the way."
Elana Centor added on her BlogHer.org blog: "The helicopters are hovering overhead. Every few minutes an ambulance rushes by. I live less than a mile from the bridge that collapsed over the Mississippi this evening. ... That was my bridge. When I'm driving from the south, the exit to my house is the first one right after you cross the bridge on the east side of the river. Because of my proximity to that bridge and because it is the route I and my children drive every day - several times a day - the phone has been ringing. We are lucky."
The bridge collapse was one of the top stories on major news sites, such as the Google News article aggregator, which pointed to hundreds of mentions around the country and the world. So did blog-search sites such as Technorati as bloggers everywhere weighed in. These included A-list bloggers, such as the normally politics-focused Michelle Malkin. "Terrible scene," she wrote.
"This is the kind of disaster that just doesn't happen in the United States - a bridge spontaneously collapsing, apparently, into a river," said John Hinderaker of the famed local Power Line blog, also usually focused on politics. "It is hard to convey to those who don't live here the astonishment of this sort of catastrophe happening on our most traveled highway."
The Wikipedia online encyclopedia amended its entry on the Interstate 35W bridge shortly after the incident to include details on the collapse and its immediate aftermath.
Top local sites such as Metroblogging Minneapolis and Mnspeak.com also brimmed with accident information and reaction. Mnspeak.com had nearly 250 comments from visitors as of 11:30 p.m. Wednesday.
"I have great faith in my city," one person wrote in a Metroblogging Minneapolis comment. "In the face of tragedy, I know the people who live here are going to pull together."
Kunin added on Blanked-Out: "I'm shocked, but no longer shaking. Still sweaty from sprinting to river side to help rescue people. ... Helped people off girders. I have pictures, will upload later. Confirmed all of my friends (except one) who commute are safe."
By late Wednesday night, Kunin had posted his dramatic pictures on flickr.com.
Julio Ojeda-Zapata can be reached at 651-228-5467 or jojeda@pioneerpress.com.
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That business about a community coming together after a disaster? It's true. Oh, there are going to be a few folks who seek to gain political capital or some measure of fame, but for most of us, there's a sense of "We're all in this together." The double whammy we got in the 1990s here in Oklahoma City - a crazed bomber in '95, world-record tornadoes in '99 - has provided all the reinforcement I could want for this premise.
And this is important:
"What I've been doing for Metroblogging is just trying to compile info. I'll editorialize and grieve later."
You're putting your community ahead of yourself. Just like I said.
If you'd had any doubts about yourself and how you'd handle things, put them aside. Your heart and your head are both in the right place.
I second Chaz's sentiment; you're in the middle of a tough event's aftermath, and it will be awhile before all of the various feelings settle in your head. Keep up the info gathering at Metblog. It will help everyone -including you- as time goes on.
I'm right there with you. When the heart aches it seems like connect with people, places, etc.