My mother-in-law called from Minneapolis just minutes after live coverage on local television there began. Here in Florida, my wife and I went online even before we turned on the TV — a first for me, as a longtime TV journalist — on the assumption it would take the national cable networks a little while to catch up.
We went first to the Web site of KSTP-TV, where I was news director for five years, then to the sites of its competitors. All were streaming live video that we found difficult to process. We knew the voices of the anchors, we knew the neighborhood, we’d been over the 35W bridge many times.
My wife, Michelle, reminded me of a time we crossed it twice on a trip to buy a coffee table. She graduated from the University of Minnesota. We could see the campus, just blocks from the bridge collapse. I worked maybe a mile beyond that. Still, we had trouble understanding the scene on the screen. It took us a long time just to distinguish east from west, St. Paul from Minneapolis. Some things defy understanding, especially at first.
We heard network anchors mispronounce Minnesota names and interview Twin Cities reporters we know. I saw someone I knew as a competing news director address a news conference in his new capacity as Red Cross spokesman. We watched astonishing images gathered by photojournalists whose work has always made Minneapolis television news exceptional.
I couldn’t escape how sickly similar some of the shots were to the photos and video I’ve seen from the 1980 collapse of the Sunshine Skyway bridge over Tampa Bay.
In the flood of memories the Minneapolis bridge disaster triggered, I couldn’t help thinking often of another tragedy, not yet a week old: the collision of TV news helicopters in Phoenix last Friday, which killed four. There had to be at least three and probably four helicopters from Twin Cities TV stations over the 35W collapse. There would have been virtually no other way to provide such big-picture perspective of this event. I wondered what was going through the minds of the pilots, reporters and other former colleagues of mine as they took to the skies, or directed others to do so.
At least, I thought, maybe no one will question their motives or criticize them for chasing this story.
