A day for ordinary heroes.

Byline: The Register-Guard

It took only four seconds - right in the middle of the Wednesday evening rush hour in Minneapolis - for the eight-lane steel-arched Interstate 35W bridge to drop 60 feet into the Mississippi River. A plume of sand-colored dust billowed high into the air as dozens of vehicles plummeted into the water.

As a stunned nation watched the aftermath of the calamity unfold in live TV broadcasts, a couple of things immediately stood out:

First, ordinary citizens exhibited the kind of courage and selflessness in rushing to the aid of victims that we've come to expect only from professional first-responders. The airwaves were filled with images of commuters pulling their fellow travelers out of crushed cars or up onto the riverbank and then racing back toward the danger to help others.

It was inspirational to watch. Who didn't wonder, at least for a heart-stopping moment, if this disaster was the fulfilment of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's `gut feeling' that another terrorist attack on U.S. soil was imminent? That had to be on the minds of the office workers, laborers, lawyers, nurses, teachers and other Twin Cities commuters directly caught in the catastrophe. But instead of fleeing for higher ground, a whole lot of people looked for someone to save.

Minneapolis blogger Noah Kunin offered this account of the bridge collapse on his blog Blanked Out: `I live the closest to the 35W bridge than anyone in Minneapolis, and I watched it come down from my roof. I spent 20 minutes getting people out and off the bridge. I'm being evacuated. PS This was not a bomb.'

Kunin described people climbing out of the water and then, soaking wet, joining the effort to help others.

Another noteworthy aspect of Wednesday's disaster was the speed, coordination and skill of the first-responders. Law enforcement, emergency medical teams and fire department crews converged on the scene with a well-planned approach that Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan acknowledged was a product of the training and equipment that came to the city after 9/11.

Hospitals activated their disaster response plans and blood donors were standing by.

Initial reports of the number of casualties seemed conservative, given the horrifying images of the collapse. But it turned out that cautiously releasing only confirmed information was the right approach, because the toll was far lower than officials first feared.

Larger questions about why this tragedy occurred remain to be answered, and it's a mandatory wake-up call to those responsible for maintaining vital infrastructure.

But today, even as we mourn the loss of life in Minneapolis, we salute the local heroes for their extraordinary example of what ordinary people are capable of in the midst of a catastrophe.