Personal Injury Law

Flooding in and Around Iowa Has Taken Down Two Major Bridges

By Steve Lombardi

The flooding has caused havoc in the Midwest and with the water receding additional problems are not just being uncovered but discovered. A railroad bridge collapsed late in the day Tuesday. Injured was the engineer in charge of moving the locomotive and cars off of the bridge that had been place to secure the bridge from being damaged by the raging flood waters. This railroad bridge leads to the Tyson Foods Inc. pork plant near Columbus Junction. As the cars were being moved the locomotive and two rail cars fell into the receding waters.

As reported by CBS in the Quad Cities, "The Louisa County sheriff's office received a call late last night from the Iowa, Chicago & Eastern Railroad that the bridge had collapsed. IC&E spokesman Herb Jones says that three employees were working on moving the train at the time of the accident. One of the three was taken to the hospital with ``non-life threatening injuries.'' Officials with the Federal Railroad Administration are en route to the scene."

Fox News reported, "Spokesman Steve Kulm said Wednesday that the locomotive was pulling four tanker cars off the bridge when the collapse occurred and the locomotive went into the water. He says the cars, which were loaded with water, were on the bridge to give it added weight during the flooding."

Perhaps the best images of the bridge just before and right after the collapse are shown on KCRG - TV9 Cedar Rapids, Iowa's online site. The photo was taken by Doris McElmeel from Lisbon, Iowa. I'll try to obtain permission to reprint them on this site. Otherwise you'll have to follow the link.

A video news item is on Channel 6 for ABC News.

From what's been reported it appears the rail line is operated on by Cedar American Rail Holdings Inc, and the bride is owned by Iowa Beef Packing, Inc. As quoted from the Associated Press report,

"He said Iowa Beef Packers has a contractor that conducts official inspections of the span. IC&E also looks at the bridge "from time to time, but they are not responsible for inspections," Kulm said."

The workers on the train were reported to be employees of the Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad. The bridge is located in Louisa County, Iowa.

Full post as published by Des Moines Personal Injury Lawyer on June 27, 2008 (boomark / email).