I knew the headline from the fatal luxury motor home crash would be short-lived, something like: RV loses brakes on mountain. One dead.

I stuck a note inside my “when-I-have-time” file as a reminder to pursue the story later. Within two days, the accident fell off the local news media’s radar.

Chris Halsne is an investigative reporter with KIRO-Seattle. He can be reached at CHalsne@kirotv.com.

I was driving home from work that evening, just a little past 6 p.m., when several squad cars blazed past my left shoulder. Minutes later at home, my phone rang. "What do you know about bridges?" our new city editor asked.

I flipped on my television and saw where the police had been heading: the carnage of twisted metal, concrete, cars and horrified victims. The Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis had collapsed into the Mississippi River.

MaryJo Webster is the computer-assisted reporting editor at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, where she works on daily and long-term stories, develops interactive Web applications and provides CAR training for reporters and editors.

It started with a recording on Aug. 1. After a family function, I came home around 8:30 p.m. to an urgent answering machine message from a colleague seeking National Bridge Inventory data.

About 6:05 p.m. that evening, a bridge over I-35W in Minneapolis had suddenly collapsed with vehicles falling into the Mississippi River. Thirteen people died and many more were injured.

Jeff Porter is the former director of the IRE and NICAR Database Library and has served as an instructor at the Missouri School of Journalism. Since 2001, he has provided ready-to-use government databases to hundreds of journalists. He helps lead computer assisted reporting boot camps for journalists and has spoken during journalism training events across the United States and in China, England and South Korea.

I was wrapping up a story out of federal court about 6:10 p.m. on Aug. 1 when a reporter ran back into the newsroom and breathlessly announced that a bridge on Interstate 35W had collapsed into the Mississippi River.

I looked out the window and saw a plume of smoke. Moments later, the sirens started. I began typing faster, knowing what lay ahead.

Dan Browning covers federal government for the Star Tribune. He has a special interest in computer assisted reporting (CAR), having served as the Star Tribune’s CAR editor from 1998 to 2001. He has won numerous reporting awards for his investigative work and stories on racial issues, public affairs, health, spot news and military affairs.