Hundreds were on hand for the 35W Bridge Remembrance Garden dedication.

​After a long day of torrential downpours, the clouds parted over Gold Medal Park yesterday evening just for the dedication of the new I-35W bridge collapse memorial.

Emotions ran high as a representative for each of the 13 victims who died in the accident came onstage to eulogize their loved ones on the fourth anniversary of the tragedy.More >>

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Jake and Mercedes doing home therapy after her fall

​It was 4 years ago today our lives changed forever," DJ Jake Rudh wrote on his Facebook wall this morning. "Here are pics from August 1st, 2007 and the months that followed. She continues to be the strongest woman I know."

That woman is his wife, Mercedes Gorden, who was driving across the I-35W bridge when it collapsed onto the Mississippi riverbed below, killing 13 and injuring 145 people. Gorden fell eight stories and injured both legs, resulting in a two-month hospital stay, more than 10 surgeries, long-term at-home rehabilitation and, needless to say, some very intense and painful emotions.
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​Did throwing a few bucks the Red Cross's way constitute the bulk of your "help Haiti" efforts? Us too. We were feeling pretty good about ourselves, too, until we heard about Betsy Sathers.

Scott and Betsy Sathers of Blaine had been married for just 10 months when the I-35 bridge collapsed in Aug. 2007. Thirteen people were killed, including Scott. Two-and-a-half years later, Betsy Sathers is connected to another tragedy-- this time, though, it's more about life than death. With no children of her own (she and Scott were looking forward to staring a family at the time of his death), Sathers, 33, decided to adopt a pair of Haitian twins, Ross and Alyse.

"I don't think I rescued them," Sathers tells the AP. "I feel like if anything, they've rescued me."

Read the full story here.

Thanks to the magic of the internet, we have multiple angles of the Lowry Bridge implosion.

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Photo by mtellin

Victims of the 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis nearly two years ago are still suing the engineering firm and repaving company that did the last work on the bridge before it collapsed. But what about the designer of the bridge in the first place?

The original designer has now asked a judge to keep them out of the lawsuits related to the collapse in 2007, claiming too much time has passed since the bridge's original construction to place any blame on them. If they are considered liable in the case, they could be forced to pay out for the lawsuits too. More >>

Photo by mtellin

The 179 settlements in the 2007 35W bridge collapse have been officially accepted and the amounts for each victim have been released. The money is from a $37 million fund set up by legislators.

Check out the individual amounts below.

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Photo by mtellin

Jeremy Hernandez of Minneapolis, Minnesota was one of three Americans honored today with the Above & Beyond Citizen Honor award. The honor is one of the most prestigious civilian awards, chosen by the less than 100 living Medal of Honor recipients.

Hernandez, 22, was honored for helping save 50 children on a school bus when the 35W bridge collapsed Aug. 1, 2007.

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Photo by mtellin

Attorneys representing 117 families of bridge collapse victims told a group of survivors and families that the National Transportation Safety Board came to the wrong conclusion about the cause of the 35W bridge collapse in 2007, says the Associated Press.

The attorneys hired experts to analyze the collapse and they found another cause for the deadly collapse on Aug. 1, 2007. More >>

What else is there to do after a major bridge collapses in a metropolitan area due to heavy weight and a poorly designed gusset plate killing 13? Obviously, blame the sun, for you know, doing what the sun does, setting.

OK, so that's not exactly what StarTribune journalist Jim Foti wrote in his Nov. 17 piece: "Did the sun play a part when the bridge fell." But, it's certainly how the readers took it.
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The University of Minnesota released preliminary results of their independent 35W bridge collapse study that came to similar conclusions as the government study earlier this month, according to KSTP.

The National Transportation Safety Board said the increased capacity due to a design error construction equipment led to the collapse last year.

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