RELATIVES HOPE, PRAY AS RIVER SEARCH CONTINUES

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) -- Clutching photographs and license plate numbers, dozens of distraught people Thursday waited for word of their loved ones missing after Wednesday's deadly bridge collapse.

The Red Cross has set up a family assistance center in the ballroom at the nearby Holiday Inn-Metrodome, where it's offering counseling as authorities try to recover bodies lodged in the wreckage.

As many as 50 vehicles are trapped in the rubble or in the river after the eight-lane interstate bridge collapsed during Minneapolis' evening rush hour. Twenty to 30 people were missing, Minneapolis police Chief Tim Dolan said.

Four people were confirmed dead, and officials said at least 79 people were injured when the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River buckled.

President Bush on Thursday pledged federal aid to rebuild the bridge, and the White House announced he 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.

Jessica Engebretsen, waiting near the bridge for news of her mother, asked people to pray for the missing.

Her sister, Anne, struggled to hold back the tears as she described her mom, Sherry Engebretsen, as "a fighter."

"She'll make it, she's a strong woman, she's gonna come back home," Anne told CNN. Watch family try to stay positive while awaiting word on woman's fate »

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Other relatives of the missing gathered at a hotel to await word from officials.

"I've never wanted to see my brother so much in my life," Kristi Foster told The Associated Press. She hadn't heard from her brother Kirk or his girlfriend since the collapse.

"We know of several people who were pinned or trapped" that have died, Dolan said.

"People that were pinned, people that were partly crushed ... told emergency workers to say ... goodbye," Dolan said. "It was an amazing, amazing scene."

The water below the collapsed bridge is about 7 to 8 feet deep -- just covering the roofs of the dozens of cars that are in the water, Dolan said.

Dolan said he believes there may be 20 vehicles in the water that the workers cannot even see.

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

Hennepin County Sheriff Richard Stanek said conditions in the Mississippi River were treacherous for divers, 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.

Investigators will try to reassemble the bridge 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 bridge's main truss could cause a collapse if one of two support planes were to become cracked, although it allowed that 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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