Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty on lessons Baltimore can draw from 35W bridge collapse

CATHY WURZER: Of course, we've been following the news of the bridge collapse in Baltimore. You just heard the latest update, that six people are presumed dead. And there is now an effort to recover their bodies. All six are believed to have been construction workers on the bridge at the time of its collapse in the wee hours of yesterday morning.

As recovery efforts continue, there's now also a conversation about how quickly the bridge can be rebuilt. US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg spoke with CNN this morning about the response in Baltimore and how lessons can be learned from the 35W tragedy in Minneapolis.

PETE BUTTIGIEG: I've never seen anything quite like this. But there have been experiences in the US that we are drawing from, including the 2007 Minnesota bridge collapse, where, really, the federal government and the whole country stepped up to get that reconstructed. We're learning from that and a lot of other moments in US history as part of the playbook on what to do next.

CATHY WURZER: One of the Minnesota leaders who helped the Twin Cities navigate that time, including rebuilding efforts, was then-Governor Tim Pawlenty. He is on the line right now. Governor, good to hear your voice.

TIM PAWLENTY: Good to be with you and your MPR audience, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Thank you. Almost everyone who remembers the 35W bridge collapse says they had the same horrible kind of sick feeling when they watched the video out of Baltimore yesterday. Where did your thoughts go yesterday morning?

TIM PAWLENTY: Well, a lot of sort of flashbacks to that feeling of shock, grief, and then trying to understand immediately what happened in an initially confusing situation. But now, we understand why the bridge collapsed in Baltimore-- and different than Minneapolis in the sense that we didn't know why the bridge collapsed in Minneapolis for many months afterwards, and there was a lot of speculation and things flying around.

The NTSB eventually determined the Minneapolis bridge failed because of an original design flaw dating back to the 1960s. Here in Baltimore, they know why the bridge fell. And the focus is going to shift from what happened on the bridge to what happened on the ship. But, of course, immediately, your thoughts go to the people who've lost lives, their families, people who've been injured and directly impacted by this.

CATHY WURZER: I recall there were huge logistical challenges that took a lot of coordination with recovery efforts. But I'm wondering, in the Minneapolis situation, how important was the communication piece of what happened in Minnesota, and now in Baltimore, to keep folks abreast of developments, but also to keep in mind the gravity of the situation?

TIM PAWLENTY: Yeah. An avalanche of things happening all at once-- of course, the need to take care of the families who may have lost loved ones or did lose loved ones, the first responders needing to coordinate at a local, and state, and federal level. You can imagine not just the state folks, but people like the FBI, the National Transportation Safety Board, homeland security, the military got involved at some point with Navy divers.

And it goes on and on. But there's just an enormous amount of things that have to be coordinated to make sure the rescue, now the recovery, takes place, but then communicating as leaders about the impact emotionally, but also the plan going forward to get the community healed and the infrastructure rebuilt.

CATHY WURZER: Give us a sense of the balance between allowing for enough time for recovery and investigation, with getting the wreckage removed, and the preparations in place for a new bridge, and grieving for those who are affected.

TIM PAWLENTY: Yeah, you have to do it all at once, Cathy. You don't want to appear misfocused or mis-sequenced. And so we put a lot of emphasis, along with Mayor Rybak and many others, on making sure proper respect, and mourning, and condolences were expressed, both ceremonially and authentically in-person to the victims, but then also simultaneously working very diligently to move forward with the reconstruction and the rebuilding. And the main reason for that, having to move quickly, is because in a place like I-35W bridge, or in this case in Baltimore, you can't have that bridge out very long without having dramatic economic impacts for the state, for the region, and, potentially, for the nation.

CATHY WURZER: I was trying to remember back in 2007, gosh, lawmakers voted just a couple of days after the collapse to spend $250 million to rebuild that bridge. And I remember the vote was unanimous in Congress. Now, do you think in this day and age, Congress can come together to help Baltimore?

TIM PAWLENTY: Yes. And I hope, notwithstanding the terrible polarized political environment nationally, that Americans rally towards each other in these moments of crisis-- and today, could be Baltimore, tomorrow, it could be some other community. But when something like this happens, the federal government is and must be an important partner.

In our case in Minneapolis with the bridge, they paid for most of, not all of it-- the number that they authorized included $50 million for the national convention that was taking place and for security money. But they did pay for the vast majority of it, not all of it.

And we appreciated that. And it made a real difference. And on the timing of it, Cathy, it was one of the fastest, maybe the fastest, large infrastructure project built in modern history in America. From the time of construction to completion, one year, which is almost unheard of with large infrastructure projects these days.

CATHY WURZER: Talk us through that, because that really was a record, you know? And I can only imagine the conversations that had to occur to get that going.

TIM PAWLENTY: Yes. And of course, having prompt action by the federal government was a key part of it, prompt action by the Minnesota legislature was a key part of it, again, on a bipartisan, nonpartisan basis, which we're grateful for. And it made a big difference.

But then when it got down to the nuts and bolts of the bridge itself, the bid process was accelerated. They used a process known as design build so you could begin building or at least preparing to build the bridge at the same time they were designing it in real time, which made a huge difference. And we did get some waivers as well-- regulatory waivers that allowed some things to move more quickly than normal.

And it wasn't that standards were compromised. It's just the expectations on how long these reviews would take were all accelerated and prioritized. And it made a huge difference. And I think, really, a case study for how large infrastructure projects can be built more quickly in our country.

CATHY WURZER: Gosh, I had forgotten that it was only a year that it took to rebuild that bridge. That is pretty amazing when you think about it. I'm wondering, governor, have you been in touch with anybody in Maryland? Have you been able to maybe pass along some of the lessons?

TIM PAWLENTY: I did receive word this morning that the governor of Maryland will likely be calling me today or tomorrow, and I certainly will share Minnesota's prayers and thoughts and give them any insights that I can in terms of the lessons we learned in our crisis with the I-35W bridge.

CATHY WURZER: What's the biggest lesson you personally took away from that situation?

TIM PAWLENTY: Well, you have to multitask, for sure. But one of the things I learned, among others, was the importance of leadership in a crisis. You have to rise to the moment. You have to communicate clearly and confidently, not misstating things, not misleading people or sending them down rat holes. People need to be reassured that the situation, while heartbreaking and difficult, is something that you can manage and we can move on from, and, at the same time, of course, expressing empathy and grief for those who lost lives or the injured.

CATHY WURZER: Which is difficult to do in that none of us had ever seen anything quite like that at the time, you know? And so you, and Mayor Rybak, and other leaders had to do your job as everyone was trying to figure out, how do you move forward from this? Which must have been difficult.

TIM PAWLENTY: Yes. And in so many aspects to it, Cathy-- I know we don't have time to go through it, but just one example. When it moved from rescue to recovery in the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, there's only a very limited number of highly specialized divers who can work in those kind of currents with that kind of debris to do the recovery work. And coordinating with President Bush, he sent an elite team of navy divers there that were maybe just a handful of those kind of teams in the country or the world that can do that kind of work. And so that was the type of partnership we had across the whole spectrum of needs in response to the bridge collapsing.

CATHY WURZER: We'll see how Baltimore moves forward. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much.

TIM PAWLENTY: You're very welcome, Cathy. And it's a sad day for Baltimore, a sad day for all of us, but a pleasure to talk to you. And I hope that some of the things we learned in Minnesota are helpful to them.

CATHY WURZER: Right. Thank you. That was former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.