Cooler but still well above normal this week

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

(AP) - It was a warm and perfect August night, with
workers leaving downtown Minneapolis as Twins fans streamed in,
when one of the worst disasters in Minnesota's history struck.

      The collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge into the Mississippi
River killed 13 people, injured more than 100 and drew visits from
President Bush and journalists from around the world. It was the
biggest story in Minnesota in 2007.

      Elsewhere, flooding killed seven people in southeastern
Minnesota and pushed dozens out of their homes on the western
border with North Dakota. 

Along the Gunflint Trail in northeastern
Minnesota, the worst wildfire in nearly a century burned for weeks
and destroyed scores of homes and other buildings.


--The fallout from the bridge collapse will last for years. It
touched the state's bureaucracy and its politics, prompting
questions about priorities and fights over taxes and money for
roads and bridges. Transportation Commissioner Carol Molnau fought
off calls to resign.

      Sonia Morphew Pitt, the state's homeland security director, did
not escape. She was fired after revelations that she remained on
the East Coast for nearly two weeks after the bridge fell and
improperly billed the state for at least $26,000 in unauthorized
expenses and improper pay. Three of her supervisors were
reprimanded. Pitt is contesting her firing.


      A new bridge spanning the Mississippi River is under
construction and expected to be ready by the end of 2008.


--One summer deluge set a state record as 15.1 inches of rain fell
in Houston County on Aug. 18-19, topping the old 24-hour rainfall
record of 10.84 inches that fell July 22, 1972, at Fort Ripley.
More important, damage to private property and public
infrastructure was estimated at $67 million in seven flooded
counties. Seven people died.

      In Winona County, which received $6.8 million from the
Legislature, the debris cleanup cost $1 million. As many as 50
businesses were applying for loans, and homeowners continued to
clean up into December.

      "I think most people feel as though they've been helped and are
making progress in getting back on their feet, realizing that their
new normal won't be the same as it was before," said County
Administrator Bob Reinert. "At the same time, there are some
people who are still really suffering from this."


      Earlier, in March, the Little Minnesota River overflowed,
causing damage to more than 140 structures in Browns Valley, a city
of 700 people near the South Dakota border. A few weeks later,
flooding in the Red River Valley left Browns Valley residents
homeless.

--No one was seriously injured in the fire in the Arrowhead
region, but it was the most destructive since 1918. The blaze,
which started May 5, apparently from a campfire on Ham Lake, burned
almost 119 square miles in Minnesota and Ontario. About 140
structures in Minnesota and 15 in Canada were lost, but fire crews
and local residents were credited with saving dozens of other
structures.

--Leonid Hurwicz, a 90-year-old retired professor at the
University of Minnesota, shared the Nobel Prize in economics with
Eric S. Maskin and Roger B. Myerson. The trio won for their work on
how people's knowledge and self-interest affect their behavior in
the market or in social situations such as voting and labor
negotiations.

      Hurwicz, who grew up in Poland, began teaching at the University
of Minnesota in 1951.

--Twenty-six hundred Minnesota National Guard soldiers returned
after spending 22 months in Iraq. It was the longest deployment of
any U.S. military unit in the war. In response, the Guard set up a
program to help the soldiers readjust to civilian life. The federal
government is now creating a program based on Minnesota's
experiment.

--A statewide smoking ban went into effect in September in most
public places and workplaces - including bars and restaurants. Some
bar owners complained that the ban was putting them out of
business. A few months after the ban began, Blue Cross and Blue
Shield of Minnesota and Medica reported a spike in the number of
smokers trying to kick the habit through nicotine replacement
products or smoking cessation counseling.

      
--Chemicals from an old 3M Co. product turned up in private and
city wells in six eastern Twin Cities suburbs. The company agreed
to pay $8 million to reduce the leaking of perfluorochemicals, or
PFCs, from a landfill in Lake Elmo in Washington County and up to
$5 million for research into the effects of PFCs on the
environment. The company used the chemicals years ago in the making
of Scotchgard, fire retardants and other products.

--U.S. Attorney Rachel Paulose resigned to take a job in the
Justice Department in Washington after a 21-month term marked by
the resignations of three top deputies. In April, the supervisors
stepped down from their management roles in Paulose's office and
went back to prosecuting cases, prompting a visit from a
high-ranking Justice official.

      That occurred just as Congress was investigating allegations
that eight U.S. attorneys were fired and replaced by loyalists of
President Bush. Her predecessor, Tom Heffelfinger, said he wasn't
forced out and left on his own - though he was on a list of U.S.
attorneys considered for dismissal.

--A U.S. senator's career imploded after
an incident in a Minnesota bathroom. Sen. Larry Craig, an Idaho
Republican, pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct stemming from his
arrest at the Twin Cities airport for allegedly soliciting sex from
an undercover officer. Craig's attempts to undo his plea failed.


--Comedian Al Franken, a St. Louis Park native who gained stardom
as a "Saturday Night Live" writer and performer, jumped into the
race for U.S. senator, moving to Minnesota and quitting his talk
radio job to campaign for the DFL endorsement to run against
Republican Sen. Norm Coleman.

--U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad, a moderate Republican, announced that he
would not seek re-election next year, ending a career in Congress
that began in 1991. Ramstad drew kudos from editorialists for his
civil and pragmatic approach to politics and his work on addiction
and alcohol issues.


--Northwest Airlines emerged from bankruptcy protection after a
20-month reorganization aimed at making the nation's fifth-largest
carrier competitive for years to come. The Eagan-based airline
slashed its debt by $4.2 billion, cut $400 million a year in the
cost of its fleet and trimmed unprofitable routes. It also cut $1.4
billion a year in labor costs.

--Star Tribune publisher Par Ridder resigned after a judge barred
him from the paper for one year. Ridder came to the Minneapolis
paper from the St. Paul Pioneer Press, which his family had helped
run since the 1930s. Ridder admitted in court that he took
sensitive advertising data from the Pioneer Press when he switched
jobs.

--In a groundbreaking music piracy case, Jammie Thomas of
Brainerd was convicted of illegally sharing copyrighted music
through a file-sharing network and ordered to pay $222,000. Thomas
was the first person to actually go to trial in such a case;
thousands of others have settled by paying a few thousand dollars.

--A 19-year-old Savage man, Michael Anderson, was charged with first-degree premeditated murder after allegedly posting an ad on
Craigslist to lure a woman to the home he shared with his parents.
He allegedly shot Katherine Olson, 24, once in the back in his
bedroom, then dragged her down stairs and left her in the trunk of
her car in a nearby park.

--Tiffany Johnson, 26, who grew up in Chisholm and graduated from
Hibbing High School, was killed along with another person Dec. 9
when a man began shooting at a missionary training center in
Arvada, Colo.


--Rookie Adrian Peterson shot to stardom in his first season with
the Vikings, first by rushing for a team-record 224 yards against
the Chicago Bears and then, on Nov. 4, exploding for an NFL-record
296 yards rushing against the San Diego Chargers.


--Work began on two major sports stadiums. The Twins broke ground
on a 40,000-seat, $522 million ballpark after years of wrangling
for public funds in the Legislature. The park promises majestic
views of the Minneapolis skyline and ease of travel for those
coming by light rail.

The University of Minnesota broke ground on its 50,000-seat,
$288 million football stadium - dubbed TCF Bank Stadium after its
top sponsor - which will open for the 2009 season.

Minnesota lost a distinctive voice and some well-known names:

--Herb Carneal, the Hall of Fame broadcaster and voice of the Twins
since 1962.

--Activist Vernon Bellecourt, who co-founded the American
Indian Movement in Minneapolis in 1968. 

--Charles W. Lindberg, one of the U.S. marines who raised the first American flag on Iwo
Jima - before a similar flag-raising was staged for the famous AP photograph.
     

Gallery

Six dead as flooding hits SE Minnesota

Minnesota has had its fill of disasters in 2007

Fire burning up the Gunflint Trail

 Sen. Larry Craig: 'I am not gay'

Hugs and happy reunions

Minnesota's newest Nobel Laureate receives his prize

Smoking ban goes statewide Monday

3M chemicals found in drinking water of east metro cities

Paulose leaving Minnesota for D.C.

Northwest Airlines:  As fixed as it can get?

Judge critical of Par Ridder's conduct in ruling

Remembering Herb Carneal

Business and Economic News

Media

Gregg Aamot

Author

The collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge into the Mississippi River on Aug. 1 killed 13 people, injured more than 100 and drew visits from President Bush and journalists from around the world. It was the biggest story in Minnesota in 2007.

Bridge collapse leads '07 headlines

Go Deeper.

Like this?

News you can use in your inbox