Part 1: Lorna Hanson
Part 2: Caitlin Thompson
Part 3: Kendra Cuthbertson
1.
Definition of Community in a Disaster, From a Thousand Miles Away
My bags are checked, my passport stamped, and the Japan chapter of my life about to be finished. What is it to live in a community so far removed from anything you could call familiar? To be so far from what home means puts things in perspective you never thought to think about before; everyday things which seem trivial.
Until they aren’t.
What will be my route to and from class everyday as I transfer to this new university, the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities? What is the quickest and best way to Dinkytown from St. Louis Park at seven in the morning? It is the road so often traveled. I will only be following others on their morning commute. Now, in this moment I follow thousands as they board the train from Nagasaki Central Station, bound towards Fukuoka, the last stop on Kyushu before my chapter here is done.
Everyone has left before me, so any semblance of friends or a familiar community I had here is gone. All I have left are the faces of the Japanese at the station, on the train, all these faces who are intrigued by my existence, but wouldn’t look my way twice.
Community in Japan is something so important, so precious that most people will bend any which way to be a part of a group. Who would blame them? Who wouldn’t want a network of close family, friends and colleagues surrounding you, who you could call on at any time, count on to get the important things done? Community in Japan is life.
I made the journey from a part of the group, the group that was not part of the groups of the Japanese. We are the community of foreigners. It’s such an ugly word. We banded together, and with the Japanese who were brave enough to break into our group, we etched out a small patch of togetherness in Nagasaki. I have now made the journey away from that. I go to Fukuoka to make my way back to home. Minneapolis/St. Paul. The community of the river, and people who move fluidly between groups. America.
I sit in Fukuoka International Airport. I see a family, ready to board the plane to Tokyo, the last stop for outward-bound travelers. “What are you doing!” his mother says as the little boy spills his bottle of juice. The intercom overpowers her and lets me know that I’m at the wrong gate. I’m supposed to be five doors down. Everything that happens from here on out was only a stroke of luck.
The daily television drama showing on the large plasma screens by the boarding gates stops short.
Newsflash.
A bridge has collapsed.
Mi-ne-so-ta shuu, Mi-ne-a-po-li-su shi. The state of Minnesota, the city of Minneapolis.
35W.
Home.
Who drives on that road every day? It’s about seven thirty in the morning in Japan. “Yesterday” the bridge collapsed in the late afternoon, at the height of rush hour. Cars and trucks and buses, school buses have plummeted into the Mississippi. My god, all those people. Who do I know that drives that road?
My cousin. She works at the University. She should have been getting out of work at that time.
The family I was sitting near is mopping up the spilled juice with napkins brought from the bathroom. The boy is crying as his mother scolds him with the harshest words, in the gentlest of voices. A few other travelers pass me, dragging their carry-on bags behind them. They’re on their way to Tokyo. But I’m on my way to a disaster.
I pull out my calling card, I’m happy I didn’t throw it out the night before. I knew I would want to make one last phone call before I left Kyushu, to let my parents know I’m safe and on my way home. Now I’m calling to make sure they are safe, even though they are already home.
I first call my father. He answers. He’s fine. It’s later in the evening he tells me. Grandpa, my sister, Sonia, and two new kittens are with him as they watch the news. They’ve been watching it for that last few hours. My cousin is fine. She missed the collapse by a half an hour.
Next is my mother. She is with her mother and her boyfriend and they are doing much the same. “Oh my god,” she says over the phone, “Sonia’s friend’s dad was in that. Oh my god.”
My family is all fine, but so many more are not fine. And everyone in Fukuoka International Airport is running along towards their gates, mopping up spilt juice, crying because they fear their mothers. And they’re not looking at the television. They’re not seeing what’s going on outside their community. That’s my community and it doesn’t register with them. I’m the only one in this terminal paying any close attention to this disaster. I see the road I can’t drive on when I go to class next semester. The route was one of many to choose from. It could have been that fastest way to campus, or the slowest, but now it’s not even an option. It’s my community and all I can do is call from thousands of miles away.
2.
4 dead, 79 injured, 20 missing after dozens of vehicles plummet into river (Star Tribune)
When I first heard that a Minneapolis bridge had collapsed, I was driving through the University of Minnesota campus with my mother. Her cell phone rang and after she said hello, her expression turned to one of horror. She looked at me and said "the 35W bridge collapsed." We quickly changed the radio to MPR, looking for information as we called our loved ones to ensure their safety. As we drove along the river we saw large groups of people standing on the edge of the road, pointing and staring. My mother pulled the car over and parked. We walked to where the group of people stood and immediately became engaged in conversation.
Janet Stately, witness of collapse: "I actually asked my daughter 'did we really see that? Did we really see that?' It was the unbelievable. She was screaming and crying and I don't even know what to tell you about this. I'm so sick." (Channel 4000 News)
Already the undeniable force of human empathy was in full effect. Strangers on the street asked us if we had been able to contact our family members, if everyone we loved was alright. We assured them that we had and returned their compassionate questions. A group of people started to make their way toward a footbridge and my mother and I followed. From that small bridge our view of the wrecked 35W bridge was much clearer and we could see the devastation from a new perspective. Around us people were crying, gasping, holding one another. Even amidst shock and grief, love was present. It's not surprising that, upon hearing of tragedy, many people's first response is to seek human contact. As my mother and I huddled close to each other that day on the bridge, I felt close to her in a new way. Though I'm glad we became closer on that day, a part of me is saddened that we didn't seek out other, more positive ways to connect with one another. Witnessing or experiencing disaster undoubtedly creates powerful links between human beings, but I believe it is possible, and necessary, to create primary human bonds rooted in positive experiences.
The head of the National Transportation Safety Board said people shouldn’t fret about general bridge safety across the country. (MSNBC)
In the days after the collapse of the bridge, our community buzzed with questions. What had caused this well-traveled bridge to collapse? Did it have something to do with the construction on the bridge? Was it simply a freak accident? Was government negligence to blame? As questions swirled around me, I wondered why it took tragedy to bring these questions to the surface. The 35W bridge had been cited as structurally deficient for some time before its collapse (MSNBC) yet the public, myself included, didn't know this, or knew and didn't have the power to do anything. After the disaster, communities formed where once there were none, and existing communities grew stronger. Despite the initial whirlwind of positive motion, some of this energy faded away as the disaster's prominence shrunk. People responded to the situation admirably, but allowed their momentum to die out.
"Some [survivors] are also coming together to form a community they couldn't have imagined before that horrifying rush hour when 13 people died." (Star Tribune)
In the end I was left wondering why it often takes disaster and calamity to bring out heroism and community involvement. Many months after the collapse, officials announced that faulty design and increased weight from construction were the main causes of the disaster (USA Today). Though the inspection, investigation, and its results were highly technical, it is up to us as informed citizens to be informed and inquisitive. Are most of us wandering catatonic through our days, not recognizing the need for change and informed inquiry? Does it take something terrible to shake us out of this state? Why must we build communities based upon a mutual negative experience? Like Rebecca Solnit, I want to know what it will take to carry the love, solidarity, and community activism that arise in disaster into our everyday lives. Perhaps it is time to question our government, our community, and ourselves. It is time for a proactive approach to our lives, safety, and community.
"We are human and our understanding of the land is visible only in our language and culture. We can attempt to harmonize with our surroundings, but these attempts will only be meaningful to the extent that they are manifested in our ways of speaking to one another and living together." (Bennett)
3.
On the evening of August 1, 2007, after calling my family members and friends to make sure they were all safe, I proceeded to ignore the collapse of the 35W bridge into the Mississippi River. When the TV news broadcast images of the collapse, rescue and recovery efforts, I changed the channel. Crossing the river in downtown Minneapolis I drove the long way around to avoid catching sight of the disaster site. For a while I stopped listening to Minnesota Public Radio because its coverage of the unfolding recovery was so thoroughly ever-present. Nine months before the bridge collapse I had returned from living in Sub-Saharan West Africa where I watched the disaster of AIDS take its daily toll on innocent lives. It was just too much for me to process the reality of a disaster here at home, here where we supposedly have the benefit of public infrastructure and modern technology to prevent the loss of innocent life. For a time following the bridge collapse – which killed 13 and injured more than a hundred in an instant – I traveled in intentional oblivion of our local disaster.
The Mississippi River forms the eastern boundary of Minneapolis’ Longfellow neighborhood where I’ve bought my first home. A few blocks from my house is access to a public bike path and walking trail along the Mississippi River bluff. To the south, the path leads to Minnehaha Falls, while to the north it descends from the bluff into the river flats and eventually leads to downtown. Traveling north on the bike path, on a brimming spring day two and a half years after the 35W bridge collapse, I rode past an unlikely ghost yard of twisted steel wreckage. In that instant, my self-imposed disaster oblivion came to an end.
Salvaged beams from the collapsed 35W bridge spread out along the banks of the Mississippi River in what was once a city park called Bohemian Flats. In the shadow of the University of Minnesota’s Washington Avenue Bridge, Bohemian Flats sits directly between the river and the Mississippi River Road with its accompanying recreational trails. A line of metal fencing separates bikers, joggers, walkers and the curious from a large collection of laid-out metal beams, each with its own identifying mark. Riding along, enjoying the river on a spring day, it was a shock to encounter the remains of this bridge that failed us, these broken pieces that caused so many broken lives.
No longer able to ignore it, I am finally engaging with this local disaster that took place so close to my home. After my bike ride, I looked into the story of the bridge wreckage and learned that the litigation resulting from this wrenching failure of modern infrastructure is far from over. Two and a half years on, lawsuits are still pending, and those marked pieces of steel are active pieces of legal evidence. The web of litigation reaches wide and has entangled the Minneapolis Park Board and the Minnesota Department of Transportation as legal antagonists with a mutual goal. Both agencies want the wreckage removed from the river flats, but the Park Board wants it removed immediately, refusing renewal of MNDOT’s park-use permits for its storage. MNDOT is seeking legal protection from any liability for tampering with evidence before it commits to moving a single beam. Between the river and the road, the bridge wreckage lies in a hard place.
Rebecca Solnit, in her book A Paradise Built in Hell, claims that in times of disaster people tend to engage with their community and work together for the common good, but my experience doesn’t directly support that idea. I responded to the 35W bridge collapse by not responding at all. As a bystander to disaster, unable to provide immediate service as a rescuer of victims or re-builder of the bridge, I felt it was a better use of my time to disengage from the media frenzy of hashing and re-hashing the circumstances of a tragedy. I and my own were unaffected by the bridge collapse, so what good would my avid attention to the anxiety-producing aftermath do for the real victims? And how much disaster can one person be expected to absorb in one year?
As it turns out, now that I’m ready to re-engage with this important piece of our local history, one act of the ongoing bridge collapse drama is taking place just down the road. With the acute action of the bridge collapse being over, I am engaging with the more mundane story of its restitution. Having a home and roots along the river bluff, and knowing more about the long-term effects of our local disaster, I have reason to engage in my community’s struggle with those effects. I may even have reason to attend and participate in the next city park board meeting.
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Discussion questions:
1. Can you remotely be a part of a community? More specifically, can you be a part of a community when you are not physically there to share in the happiness and pain?
2. How can we, as members of a community, encourage community building based on positive experiences?
3. Do you participate in your community’s local organizations and functions? Why or why not?
Sources:
http://www.channel4000.com/news/13802271/detail.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20102713/
http://www.startribune.com/local/11557646.html
http://www.startribune.com/local/11593606.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-11-13-628592230_x.htm
Bennett, Michael. "From Wide Open Spaces to Metropolitan Spaces". Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 8.1 (Winter 2001): 31-52. Print.
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