Divers face dangerous conditions as river search continues

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) -- The search for bodies in the Mississippi River was painstakingly slow as divers navigated debris and coped with low visibility after Wednesday's deadly bridge collapse, officials said.

About 15 divers from local counties did a bank-to-bank search Thursday afternoon and found 11 vehicles, including an 18-wheeler, said Lynn Schwartz, Communication Specialist for the Bridge Collapse Command Center.

Vehicles with bodies inside are being taken out of the river, while empty ones are being marked and left in the water, she said.

Dozens of cars are trapped in the rubble or in the river after the eight-lane interstate bridge collapsed during Minneapolis' evening rush hour. Eight people are still missing, said Hennepin County Sheriff Richard Stanek.

"[We] don't have a hard understanding of how many vehicles are underneath the bridge and that won't be known until there's an opportunity to get some heavy equipment in to move the bridge or portions of it," said Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty Thursday.

Stanek said conditions in the Mississippi River were treacherous, as the twisted steel and blocks of pavement were pushed around by river currents. He said the search could go on for five days or longer.

Four people were confirmed dead after the disaster. They were identified as Sherry Lou Engebretsen, 60, of Shoreview, Minnesota; Julia Blackhawk, 32, of Savage, Minnesota; Patrick Holmes, 36, of Mounds View, Minnesota; and Artemio Trinidad-Mena, 29, of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Officials said at least 79 people were injured.

Before she learned of Sherry Engebretsen's fate, her daughter, Jessica, waited near the bridge for news of her mother and asked people to pray for the missing.

Dozens of distraught people clutching photographs and license plate numbers waited for word of their missing loved ones. The Red Cross has set up a family assistance center in the ballroom at the nearby Holiday Inn-Metrodome, where it is offering counseling.

The disaster prompted Transportation Secretary Mary Peters Thursday to urge all states to immediately inspect all bridges of the same design out of an abundance of caution. There are about 750 of them across the country, said Brian Turmail, a spokesman for the Transportation Department.

President Bush, who on Thursday pledged federal aid to rebuild the bridge, will visit the disaster site Saturday. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said $5 million was being made available immediately to pay for traffic flow adjustments and debris removal.

The bridge fell 60 feet, about six stories, into the river. See a diagram of the bridge »

Investigators will try to reassemble it to determine what caused the collapse, said Mark Rosenker, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.

Security camera video showed the Interstate 35W bridge's center section collapsing into the river in less than four seconds. The northern end of the span appeared to drop first, and the southern end followed. Witnesses describe the chaotic scene »

CNN obtained the video from a source who asked to remain unidentified because they were not authorized to distribute it publicly.

Rosenker said video of the collapse is the equivalent of getting a plane's flight data recorder after a crash and would allow investigators to move much faster to find out what caused the disaster.

Gary Babineau was driving his truck across the bridge as it fell.

"I could see the whole bridge as it was going down and as I was falling, and it just gave a rumble real quick, and it all just gave way, and it just fell completely all the way to the ground," Babineau said. See photos of the disaster »

"This particular section of freeway was under repair," Minneapolis fire Chief Jim Clack said. "We don't know yet what caused the collapse."

A school bus filled with more than 50 children who were returning from a summer field trip was among the vehicles on the bridge when it collapsed.

Tony Wagner, the president of a local nonprofit social services group that organized the trip, said eight of the kids, ages 5 to 14, were hospitalized.

Mark Lacroix, who lives on the 20th floor of an apartment building near the bridge, told CNN he saw the last seconds of the collapse.

"I heard this massive rumbling and shaking ... and looked out my window," Lacroix said. "It just fell right into the river."

According to the Minneapolis Riverfront District Web site, the steel arch bridge was opened in 1967. Its longest span stretches 458 feet over the river, and it was constructed with no mid-river piers to facilitate river traffic.

The bridge was undergoing nonstructural re-decking work, U.S. Transportation Department spokesman Brian Turmail said.

A 2001 study conducted by the Minnesota Department of Transportation found "several fatigue problems" in the bridge's approach spans and "poor fatigue details" on the main truss.

The study suggested that the design of the bridge's main truss could cause a collapse if one of two support planes were to become cracked, although it said a collapse might not occur in that event. But, the study concluded, "fatigue cracking of the deck truss is not likely" and "replacement of the bridge ... may be deferred."

Two years ago, the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Bridge Inventory database said the bridge was "structurally deficient."

The bridge received a rating of 4 on a scale of 0 to 9. A bridge receives a rating of 4 when there is "advanced section loss, deterioration."

About 140,000 cars a day travel over the bridge, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation. E-mail to a friend

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