Sep 17, 2008 10:44 pm US/Central
In The Know: Bridge Perspective From The Newsroom
(WCCO)
Tomorrow the new Interstate 35W bridge will be opened and cars will cross the river at that location for the first time since the collapse more than a year ago. Don Shelby takes us back to that day when the news first broke -- before we broke it to you.
It was just past 6 o'clock on Aug. 1 last year. As usual, police radios were crackling in the background in the newsroom. Then came the words that a bridge was down in the Mississippi River.
Big bridge, little bridge, we didn't know. Our minds, even trained journalists' minds, don't leap immediately to the unthinkable. But then we learned and reported to you that it wasn't any bridge, it was the bridge.
The mathematically inclined began to figure the traffic load at rush hour, take the span's length, multiply by four lanes and divide by the length of a car to imagine how many might be in the river.
The first pained voices of the on-scene reporters told us what they were seeing was just beyond their own comprehension. The first helicopter shots and the shaky voices put me in mind of eyewitness radio report of Herb Morrison who saw and reported the fiery crash of the Hindenberg in 1937.
This wasn't a bridge story about twisted metal and gusset plates. In our hearts we could only echo Herb's tortured words: "Oh, the humanity."
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Stumble It!
Reporting
