Today marks 10 years since the Interstate 35W St. Anthony Falls Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis that killed 13 and injured 145, and brought a heightened level of focus on the conditions of bridges in the U.S.
The bridge, which was 1,907 feet long and featured eight lanes spanning the Mississippi river, had a catastrophic failure in the main span of the deck truss, according to the National Transportation Safety Board report on the incident.
Due to this failure, 1,000 feet of the deck truss collapsed and 456 feet of the main span fell 108 feet to the river just after 6 p.m. on Aug. 1, 2007. Seventeen of the 111 vehicles that were on the section of bridge that collapsed were recovered from the river.
The bridge originally opened in 1967 and was constructed on a 458-foot steel arch to avoid placing piers in the water to reduce the impact of navigation on the river, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT). The agency reports a 2004 traffic count showed there were 141,000 vehicles travelling on the structure each day.
After the collapse, then Transportation Secretary Mary Peters made available $5 million in emergency relief funds to help with the repairs. MnDOT and contractor work on the design-build project was completed in 339 days.
The department says the new structure has the following features:
