Bridge Collapse Tapes Released

The city of Minneapolis released about 12 minutes of logging tapes from 911 calls the day the Interstate 35 bridge collapsed over the Mississippi River, detailing the difficulty in obtaining an initial location for the incident. Callers were frantic as they tried to report that the entire bridge had collapsed, and calltakers tried to pin down an address. About 100 persons called with the first two minutes, officials said, and that 14 dispatchers were on-duty when the incident happened. The first 911 callers were witnesses, but soon victims began dialing 911 for help as they were trapped on the bridge or even on top of debris in the river. Listen (mp3) to the calls here.