MANKATO, Minn. (AP) — Contractors on Wednesday blew up the remnants of a damaged southern Minnesota bridge that last summer after a bout of heavy rain that prompted a federal emergency declaration for the area near Mankato.
Explosives were used to destroy the beams of County Road 9 Bridge, in a Facebook post. Video shows synchronized blasts followed by eruptions of billowing black and beige clouds as huge sections of the bridge crashed into the frozen Blue Earth River below.
County commissioners last year to replace the bridge and , both of which were at risk of crumbling after last year's deluge. Residents had used the roughly 40-year-old bridge to commute across the dam from rural patches of land to nearby towns. Officials anticipate a yearslong rebuilding process.
The river's water levels rose dramatically in late June and early July after pummeled the Midwest for days. While the structures held up in the end, floodwaters forged a new river channel around the dam and cut deeply into a steep riverbank, toppling utility poles, wrecking a substation, swallowing a home and forcing the .
Mankato is about 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of Minneapolis.
Associated Press, The Associated Press
