Minneapolis is where I grew up. Depending on which way mom, dad or the bus was going, I went over, under or around the I-35W bridge on my way to school everyday for about 10 years. I also (mis)spent a good deal of time roaming those river bottoms on the Mississippi.

No doubt millions of digital photos have recorded the disaster that happened there yesterday. The two best - indeed remarkable - sets that I have seen are here and here. 

The first gives a better impression than anything so far in the media of the damage on the roadway. The second is from a guy who lives in a warehouse 50 feet from the bridge, who was pulling people off the pile. 

I am struck in looking at all of these images by the concentrated urban history that converges on this spot.

The train under the bridge was on a siding for the old Pillsbury A Mill, whose founding was at the falls just above the collapse (the largest natural waterfall in US west of Niagra) was a milestone in the growth of the city that sprang up here to process grain from across the northern plains.

Next to the bridge is a lock and dam built by the Army Corps of Engineers in the early 1960s, in a long-forgotten boondoggle that bypassed the falls for barge traffic that was and is minimal. You can go through them in your canoe, too, however, which is very cool. 

Drought in the region means that the river is running at only about 15 percent of normal levels. And thanks to the dam, the Army Corps will be able to drop the water level down stream by about two feet so that crews can get into the wreckage. 

And of course there is the interstate highway system itself, which as you can see in the first photo carved a massive swath to make way through the city. Two main interstates cut through the Twin Cities - I-94 from east to west, and I-35 north to south. Provisions were made so that they intersect in both Minneapolis and St. Paul on rights of way bigger than any I have seen elsewhere.

In fact I would venture that on a percentage basis the Twin Cities have more close-in urban land given over to highways than almost anywhere else including Los Angeles. Quite a lot of old city neighborhoods disappeared in order to make this so. But it is incredibly quick to get around town. 

And so it goes. 

Watch for a lot of very interesting, very partisan infighting to errupt over who is to blame for this. There have been bitter fights in Minnesota over highway budgets; there is a hot Senate race shaping up; and the Chair of the Transportation Committee in the House of Representatives is from the northern part of the state.

Read the latest in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which has been scrambling hard to cover the story.