Reaction to the I35W bridge collapse

As most everyone around the country knows (and around the world for that matter), the I35W bridge collapsed, and terrified many people. I got calls minutes after the news broke out from concerned family members, checking to make sure I was ok. I also received text messages from friends outside the Twin Cities just to see if I was still kicking. Personally, I don't know that I had ever used that bridge, and if I had, it would likely have only been once. For me, it doesn't really scare me that something like this happened because these events are so rare, although given this country's failure to properly invest in infrastructure, it may become less rare, and then again it may not. For those who drove over the bridge every day, it might have been a more traumatic experience.

I hate to say it, but this could have been a lot worse. Had repairs not been going on, and had those other four lanes been open, many more people could have died because of (1) more cars on the road and (2) higher speeds because if more lanes were open, traffic likely would have been moving more quickly. Since I didn't know anyone involved in the collapse, I have can say that I hope that our engineers can learn a great deal from this and use that knowledge in the reconstruction.