The Minnesota bridge collapse was my first trip without Bob. I badly needed to go and get myself back out there in the field or else I’d wither away slamming pieces for 4p everyday in the bureau. I think I’m better in the field. I get really aggressive and the field is always challenging.
I arrive on site the day after it happened. We were on the roof of the Holiday Inn garage on Washington Street. You go a decent view of the buckled part of the bridge but couldn’t see down into the river where the rest lay.
The next day I was met my at the site of our first assignment, a press conference by the Hennepin County Sheriff’s office. We then headed back to the garage and my cameraman got assigned to liveshots so I was given another crew. We went off to shoot a few more things then another press conference.
Later that night the Minneapolis Police Department decided to hold a press conference on top of the Gold Medal Flour Park hill next to the river. It was about the worst spot I’ve ever seen for a press conference, not to mention it was 830pm. I was the producer, a reluctant affiliate cameraman shot it and the satellite truck was a rental but had a great crew. They were able to make it so it went back live to CNN (which was a good thing because we were getting our butt kicked by the other nets, especially FOX).
The next day was liveshots with Gulf Coast Bureau reporter Susan Roesgen at another location on the other side of the river where the damage to the bridge and cars was much more evident. Many crews were already there setup but I snuck us in on the end.
For the next few days we attended press conferences and did liveshots but now word on the remaining bodies being pulled up out of the water. It seemed like that was an odd thing but the local and state authorities didn’t have the heavy and very specialized equipment necessary to achieve anymore results – and it was not for lack of trying.
Navy and FBI teams were called in to help and eventually, on August 20th, 20 days after the incident, they recovered the final remains. By then I was in Utah on another tragedy that had begun a week before, coalminers again.