Alone or with support, relatives wait out search for bridge victims

MINNEAPOLIS -- Mohamed Sahal is in seclusion, praying through tears for his missing pregnant wife and 2-year-old daughter.

The teenage stepchildren of a red-haired construction worker called "Jolly" are huddled at home, thinking about the man who helped raise them and imagining the horror he must have experienced as he plunged into the river.

And nearly 50 others gathered Saturday in a stark white classroom at Augsburg College -- strangers bound forever by the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge and the torturous wait for confirmation of what their hearts already know.

"Every time a cell phone rings or an officer calls, they think it's for them," said Melanie Tschida of the Red Cross.

At least five people were killed and about 100 injured when concrete and steel abruptly gave way during rush-hour traffic Wednesday, sending dozens of vehicles into the Mississippi River. Authorities believe eight people are missing.

Some of their relatives can barely contemplate life without a loved one, said volunteer Allan Brankline.

"They are asking themselves, 'When is the last time I spoke with them? What is the last thing I said?"' said Brankline, a mental health specialist and certified social worker from Rochester.

In four seconds, lives changed. People who were strangers are now embracing, Brankline said. Long-estranged relatives are speaking.

"The first day, the families really sat amongst themselves. But as time's gone on, those boundaries are evaporating because they're all experiencing this together," Tschida said.

"I've heard laughter, some applause, even some celebration. They're celebrating the lives of their loved ones," she said.

Late in the drizzly afternoon, nearly 40 relatives boarded buses for a police escort to the nearby 10th Avenue bridge, where they peered over the edge and into the wreckage below. Most stood silently for several minutes before reboarding and returning to Augsburg.

Dorothy Svendsen, mother of missing 45-year-old construction worker Greg Jolstad, has been waiting at home in Hinckley while daughter-in-law Lisa Jolstad travels between home in Mora and the Red Cross centers.

Greg Jolstad had been operating a compact loader as part of an 18-man crew pouring new concrete on the bridge deck, but he never feared for his safety, even when working high above water.

"I think he just thought it was part of his job, a hazard, just one of the things you have to deal with," his mother said.

Now, all the family can do is wait for Jolstad to be found.

"We have a support group of friends and family, and that helps a lot," Svendsen said. "It's awful, but I don't think anybody has any information."

Mohamed Sahal's entire family vanished when the bridge fell -- his daughter Hanah, 2, and his 23-year-old wife Sadiya, five months pregnant.

The nursing student had been on her way to pick up a friend who needed a ride home from work when she got snarled in barely moving traffic. She called home about a half-hour before the bridge collapsed to say that the traffic was bad, but that she'd be home soon.

Sahal is so devastated he can barely speak, relying on an activist in the Somali immigrant community for periodic updates from the police.

"He's with family in an apartment," said Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center. "He's just praying a lot."

Andrew Baker, chief medical examiner for Hennepin County, said the families he has met have been forming friendships likely to last a lifetime.

"These are people that 48 hours ago never would have crossed paths in the whole world, and here they are coming together. ... It's just amazing," he said.

"We have families to go home to tonight. Some of them don't. And I don't even know if there's a word you can use to describe that feeling."

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Associated Press writers Henry C. Jackson and Ryan J. Foley contributed to this report.