Yesterday I spent a few minutes on the balcony of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, looking out over the Mississippi River. To my right, I could see the remains of the 35W bridge. Even if you don't live in Minneapolis, you've probably seen the images of the wreckage in the paper or on TV. To me, everything looked smaller. It was drizzling and everything seemed quiet. There was nothing moving on or around the area, the rescue operations had stopped for the rain. The only people I could see were the theater goers next to me. This was a bridge I've traveled on hundreds of times before, but never once noticed it. As my dad told me, it was a bridge most didn't know was there.
My friends are beginning to call it "the ground zero of Minneapolis." It is fitting, as the collapse has changed this town forever, although for different reasons than the ground zero in New York. The fall of the towers symbolized an outside attack on our way of life by the extreme hatred of a small group of people, and the collapse of the bridge here symbolizes the slow crumbling of our society, caused only by negligence and apathy towards ourselves and others.
President Bush was nice enough to pay this city a three hour visit yesterday. As I remember, this was his first visit to Minneapolis in a long time. Congress continues to dish out money to the Minnesotan government, and the last I heard the figure was around 250 million. However, during Bush's brief visit, he told Mayor R.T. Rybak and other representatives that he would "make no promises on the timetable" for the rebuilding of the bridge. Sounds familiar. (See the Minneapolis Star Tribune article about his visit here.)
Bush's attitude during his visit is similar to his attitude during his other visits to disaster sites. When one survivor told the story of how he saved himself and then helped to bring a bus load of children out of the wreckage, Bush replied with; "Great job." Obviously, nothing has change within the nation's infrastructure since the "Heckuva job" done in New Orleans and Bush's attitude towards his constituents' problems hasn't changed either.
Also in the Star Tribune today was a column by Ann McFeatters, "Save now, pay later- and how". It was not until I read this that I realized how many infrastructure problems the US has had recently. She lists them off: Katrina, blackouts in the North East and around the country, a Hawaii dam collapse, sink holes in Brooklyn, and the 13,000 deaths a year that are related to improper highway maintenance. I'm sure there are hundreds of other minor, but significant cases around the nation that don't get national attention.
When McFeatters lists these catastrophes off, it seems as if the US is going through an epidemic. One of my family friends was hit hard by the bridge collapse, not because she was involved in it, but because of what it meant to her. She is concerned that these infrastructure failures signify the beginning of the end for our society, in the same way the Roman Empire fell due to their lack of concern with their crumbling infrastructure. This might be a little bit of paranoia, but ever since last Wednesday, I've started to wonder if it is just history repeating itself.
The 35W bridge collapse is another betrayal from the US government to its citizens. Even in a post-Katrina society, disasters can still occur which leave government officials pointing their fingers at anyone but themselves. To continue to be a leader in the global village, the US must once again become concerned with its citizens' wellbeing. If people cannot trust the country they live in, then falling bridges and sinkholes will soon become the least of the government's problems.
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