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That’s my hometown.  The quaint local news station that whose feed CNN taps into–that’s the station my mom watches.  I’ve walked along the wreckage strewn paths.  I’ve driven over the heap of concrete and twisted steel.  I know how absurd it is for the news anchor to ask questions about pollution in the Mississippi.  (In Minneapolis the Mississippi is as blue and clean as you could ask.)  I know from personal experience how fast the river can move, and how dangerous that must be for the divers and rescue workers–not to mention any potential survivors.  I know how uncomfortably humid it can get on an August afternoon, and I feel for the rescue workers, police officers, etc. who have to stand out there all day.

The national networks aren’t supposed to preempt prime-time coverage for disaster in my home town.  That happens in far-off, exotic places like New York, New Orleans, London, or Baghdad.  Not Minneapolis.  Minneapolis is home to cold winters and quirky politicians, the Vikes, the Gophers, and the Twinkies, Minnesota Nice and Garrison Keillor (I know, he’s from St. Paul, but I’ll claim him anyway).  Disaster on the Mississippi River is supposed to mean that a kid fell through the ice and nearly drowned–not that a bus-load of kids came a few yards from falling off a crumbling, three-story bridge. Minneapolis isn’t supposed to make the national news at all in the middle of summer, except maybe unless Johan Santana throws a no-hitter.

But there it is on all the networks and the cable news programs and the front page of the New York Times and the Washington Post.  And I tell myself, that’s not right.  That happens in someone else’s hometown.  The hard-hitting journalism, the exposes of government mismanagement, the disturbing video taken by an innocent bystander–these things happen in war-torn countries, in Hurricane country, and of course in Manhattan.  When people are shocked by Minneapolis it’s supposed to be because its such a beautiful and green city (in the summer) or so incredibly cold (in the winter)…  not because of the human tragedy playing out in front of your eyes.  But there it is.

And so I pray for the people who fell into the river along with the bridge, and for the families of those who still don’t know where their loved one is.  And I can’t shake the feeling of how horrible it must be to live in a place and a time where your hometown is on the news half-way around the world every single day.  After all, Bagdhad, Gaza, New Orleans–those are someone’s hometown too.