Difficult Conditions Hamper River Search
No Bodies Recovered At Bridge Collapse Site

By Philip Rucker and William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, August 4, 2007

MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 3 -- Feeling their way forward in murky water with barely six inches of visibility, teams of divers Friday located more vehicles that plunged into the Mississippi River in Wednesday evening's collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge, but they failed to find any bodies inside, authorities said.

As the grim, treacherous recovery effort continued for a second full day, the National Transportation Safety Board reported a curious finding from its nascent investigation: The southern part of the bridge collapsed in a different way from the rest of the span, shifting about 50 feet to the east as it fell, while the rest of the bridge collapsed in place. Officials declined to speculate on what the anomaly meant, saying it needs to be thoroughly studied.

Conducting their search in conditions they described as better than before -- but still difficult and hazardous -- divers found five submerged vehicles Friday morning just upstream from the collapsed bridge, Hennepin County Sheriff Richard Stanek told reporters. The divers searched four of the vehicles, finding no victims in any of them, but they were unable to examine a car that was sitting on the bottom of the river, crushed underneath another vehicle, he said.

The confirmed death toll from the disaster stood at five Friday, including a man whose body was pulled from a burned truck on the collapsed bridge late Thursday. Three other victims died at the disaster site Wednesday when the eight-lane bridge suddenly collapsed during the evening rush hour, falling 64 feet into the river. One victim who was pulled from the wreckage died of his injuries shortly afterward in hospital, Medical Examiner Andrew Baker said.

The number of people missing in the disaster remained uncertain Friday. Police initially gave an estimate of 20 to 30. By Friday morning, some officials said they could confirm only eight people missing. But at an afternoon news briefing, Stanek declined to give a figure.

"We don't know," he said. "It's a terrible mess, quite honestly. We don't know how many cars were on the bridge when it collapsed, and we don't know how many victims were in the cars."

He said one woman who previously had been listed as unaccounted for was found at work Friday morning. Her car had been recovered at the disaster scene, but her whereabouts were unknown until detectives located her at her job.

Minneapolis Police Chief Timothy Dolan later would say only that "several people" were missing. "It could be more than eight; it could be less than eight," he told reporters. He estimated that 50 to 60 vehicles were on the bridge when it collapsed, about 30 of which are visible on the fallen slabs of concrete or in the wreckage.

Slowing the recovery operation have been treacherous river conditions, as well as the hazards of trying to extract bodies from vehicles amid the surface wreckage. Swimming practically blind in the muddy river, divers must navigate perilous debris, including twisted steel girders, tangled cables and jagged chunks of concrete bristling with iron reinforcement bars.

Visibility remains "terrible," said Capt. Bill Chandler, commander of the 20 divers at the site. "They can see maybe six inches at best." Once they locate a vehicle, the divers report back on the license plate number and then check inside, reaching in and feeling for bodies, he said.

"It's all Braille diving -- zero-visibility diving," said Capt. Ken Schilling, a coordinator for the recovery operation. "It's all about the feel."

So far, divers have located 12 vehicles in the water, Stanek said.

As the divers searched in vain for more victims, Mark V. Rosenker, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told reporters that investigators are focusing on the southern end of the 1,907-foot-long steel truss bridge, which opened to traffic in 1967. A security camera that captured the collapse showed that the southern section "seemed to behave differently in the video and in the final way that it sat after the collapse," Rosenker said.

"It appears that it shifted approximately 50 feet to the east," he said, while "the rest of the bridge appears to have collapsed in place." He said investigators would analyze design factors that could account for such a shift. He said they believe that the shift occurred as the bridge was falling, not that it caused the collapse.

In Washington, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters requested that her department's inspector general investigate the agency responsible for inspecting highway bridges. The inquiry will focus on the Federal Highway Administration's inspection program and ways to improve the agency's oversight of more than 70,000 bridges that have been found structurally deficient. The Minneapolis bridge was found structurally deficient in 1990.

Amy Harris, a spokeswoman for the Minnesota Hospital Association, said 98 people were treated at 10 hospitals after the collapse, and 28 remained hospitalized Friday night. The Hennepin County Medical Center, where the most severely injured victims have been treated, reported that five patients were in critical condition and eight were listed as "satisfactory."

Some family members have lost hope that their missing loved ones would be found alive, facing a sobering reality Friday as the slow, deliberate recovery operation continued.

"Yesterday, there was some anxiety -- some fear, but some hope," said Alan Brankline of the American Red Cross, a specialist in disaster mental health who has been comforting family members at a hotel near the river. "Now, there's a mood that's a little different. There's distress," he said, as well as anger and denial.

"Many of the families are believing this is still a surreal nightmare, an event that they can't comprehend emotionally," Brankline said.

In a visit to the disaster scene Friday, first lady Laura Bush also found the destruction difficult to grasp.

"Unbelievable," she murmured as Minneapolis Deputy Police Chief Rob Allen showed her the site from a hill beside the collapsed bridge. He pointed out a yellow school bus that had been packed with children returning from an outing at a water park and that now sat jammed against a guardrail at the edge of a fallen concrete slab. The 61 people on board survived a drop of at least 40 feet and made their way off the bridge to safety.

"If you ever need proof of the hand of God, just look where that bus is," Allen told the first lady. Referring to the immediate rescue efforts by first responders and concerned citizens, he added: "There were lots of acts of bravery out there."

President Bush is scheduled to visit Saturday.

Among the missing may be a 24-year-old Somali immigrant, Sadiya Sahal of St. Paul, and her 20-month daughter, Hana, who was in a car seat in the back of Sahal's white Toyota Highlander, according to friends. Since the collapse, no one has heard from Sahal, who was several months pregnant, friends said.

Branigin reported from Washington. Staff writer Michael E. Ruane in Minneapolis contributed to this report.