13 Seconds in August

One excellent source of interactive online journalism is the Star Tribune's coverage of the I-35W bridge collapse on August 1st, 2007 in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. Almost 200 people were on the bridge when it collapsed, 13 of them died. I watched the news reports when it happened but was not aware of this website until recently. The interactive web page does a fine job of telling the stories of the many people whose lives were forever changed that day by a very traumatic experience.

link:  http://www.startribune.com/local/12166286.html
The first page of the website strings together audio, video, and photos to create a moving scene as an introduction to what follows. Then the site opens up to an interactive aerial photo of the bridge which has a circled number for each vehicle that was on the bridge when it collapsed. When you click on the circles the screen to the right shows information regarding the person or persons who were on the bridge that day.

Through text, photos, a photo gallery, or video there is a short narrative of what happened to the survivor, or the deceased. Some of the narratives only include text, some text and a photo; others add a photo gallery and the best ones have a video. In the video the person describes the events of the day and how it has affected their life. One particularly moving video is of a woman who lost her husband that day. In some cases the journalists have no information, so they request for anyone who has information to contact them. And some of the circles are in yellow, meaning the information has been updated. In this way the website becomes an ongoing story that may help people to not forget.

As a whole, I thought the website was an excellent tribute to the people who were part of such a traumatic experience. The interactive feature made it interesting as I scrolled through and discovered the thoughts, feelings and descriptions, from a personal perspective, of what happened that day. It would have been nice to have had even more information, but what was done was concise and respectful, a moving experience.