It started with a recording on Aug. 1. After a family function, I came home around 8:30 p.m. to an urgent answering machine message from a colleague seeking National Bridge Inventory data. About 6:05 p.m. that evening, a bridge over I-35W in Minneapolis had suddenly collapsed with vehicles falling into the Mississippi River. Thirteen people died and many more were injured. In 48 hours, the IRE and NICAR Database Library provided more than 150 news organizations with the National Bridge Inventory. Over the next few days, that number grew to 200. The term "structurally deficient" was ... Read more ...

I was wrapping up a story out of federal court about 6:10 p.m. on Aug. 1 when a reporter ran back into the newsroom and breathlessly announced that a bridge on Interstate 35W had collapsed into the Mississippi River. I looked out the window and saw a plume of smoke. Moments later, the sirens started. I began typing faster, knowing what lay ahead. I had not worked with the Federal Highway Administration’s National Bridge Inventory database since 1994, when I discovered its complexity and shortcomings while working at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Minnesota is known for ... Read more ...