Truck-bomb Rips Bay Bridge Interchange!

I was intrigued by the different journalistic takes on yesterday’s event. The news search results from Ask.com show some interesting variations and evolution:

Fiery Crash Collapses California Freeway
Washington Post - Found 1 hour ago (Registration)
Calif. -- A heavily traveled section of freeway that funnels traffic off the San Francisco-Oakland Bay... intense enough to melt part of the freeway and cause the collapse, but the truck's driver...

(Pretty close, but one or more sharp-eyed editor possibly realized that the crash itself was not the direct but the indirect cause of the incident. It was the fire that caused the collapse, not the truck.)

Fire From Crash Collapses Calif. Freeway
ABC News - Found 27 minutes ago
intense enough to melt part of the freeway and cause the collapse, but the truck's driver...

(This revised headline says it better, right? Oh, wait—maybe, as the story text indicates, it’s a tiny bit of overstatement to imply that the whole Freeway collapsed)

A section of freeway that funnels traffic off the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge collapsed early Sunday after a gasoline tanker truck overturned and caught fire beneath it, authorities said.
MSNBC - Found 1 hour ago
intense enough to melt part of the freeway and cause the collapse, but the truck's driver... a 250-yard section of the roadway to collapse onto the roadway below, according to the highway...

(Now we’re getting specific—that headline won’t fit on the Oakland Tribune front page, though)

Calif. road collapses after tanker fire
MSNBC - Found 1 hour ago
Calif. - A section of freeway that funnels traffic off the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge collapsed... intense enough to melt part of the freeway and cause the collapse, but the truck's driver...

(Yah, it’s shorter, but it doesn’t adequately convey the seriousness of the situation. After all, this is a major traffic interchange, isn’t it?)

SF bridge interchange collapses
USA Today - Found 57 minutes ago
(AP) - A heavily traveled section of freeway that funnels traffic off the San Francisco-Oakland Bay... intense enough to melt part of the freeway and cause the collapse, but the truck's driver...

(SF? Hmm. Frisco’s impacted, for sure, but we’re losing our focus. Did that whole interchange fall down?)

Fire From Crash Melts Calif. Freeway
Daily Advance - Found 35 minutes ago
Fire From Crash Collapses Calif. Freeway By MARCUS WOHLSEN Associated Press Writer OAKLAND, Calif. A stretch... intense enough to melt part of the freeway and cause the collapse, but the truck's driver...

(“Melts.” I like it. A punchy, unique verb. Don’t know about “Calif.” though. Is that the approved abbreviation?)

Fiery Crash Causes Part Of Bay Bridge To Collapse
Channel 3000 - Found 38 minutes ago
Oakland side of the Bay Bridge. A freeway interchange that funnels traffic off the bridge collapsed...

(Now we’re getting alarmist. Is this the Loma Prieta earthquake? The piece of roadway that collapsed isn’t really “Part of Bay Bridge, but more than a mile away from it.)

Tanker Fire Causes Ca. Highway Collapse
CBS 11 News - Found 29 minutes ago
(CBS News) SAN FRANCISCO A freeway interchange that funnels traffic off the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge... fire was intense enough to weaken the freeway and cause the collapse, the truck's driver walked...

(Ca. That’s the abbreviation I was looking for. Saves three headline letters. We got the causality right too, starting to drill down into what the effects of the event will be. At least the driver walked away…)

Freeway At San Francisco Bay Bridge Collapses
KUTV - Found 1 hour ago
FRANCISCO - A heavily traveled section of freeway that funnels traffic off the San Francisco-Oakland Bay... intense enough to melt part of the freeway and cause the collapse, but the truck's driver...

(Ah, the journalistic sweet spot—the freeway at the Bay Bridge. Kinda like Monster Stadium at Candlestick Park)

I thought it was particularly poignant that on the Channel 4 News Sunday morning, just a few hours after the fire, the newscasters were using “Google Earth” to show viewers what had occurred. An interesting testament to the complexity of the “MacArthur Maze” is that they reported that travel in three directions was blocked by the collapse, when in fact only two directions were affected. Looking out my livingroom window I could clearly see traffic coming around the curve onto 580 from southbound I-80. The maze will do that to you—you look at it and make what seem to be reasonable assumptions about what road does what—but they are wrong.

So, I figured the reporters and authorities just needed to be given a chance—later in the afternoon I checked online for a comprehensive description of what was open and what was closed—it was nowhere to be found. Even today, with extended wakeup TV newscasts, the discussion remains rather incoherent, with both drivers and newspeople pitching the greatest possible gloom and hysteria. Strangely, no one yet has uttered the T word.

Meanwhile, the helicopters hovering endlessly overhead are driving us crazy.

The MacArthur Maze, as seen from above. That’s the hand of Allah gripping the affected portion. Red arrow shows our location.