Close-ups from bridge collapse:
 

Photos from this AM, offered w/o comment:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1186597677.jpghttp://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1186597700.jpghttp://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1186597863.jpghttp://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1186597883.jpghttp://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1186598016.jpg

Obviously, a horrible accident. But I wonder to myself, when do the people that were able to walk away get their cars back?

After they finish spray-painting them!

Wouldn't this be some kind of automatic totalling?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure all of those cars will end up totalled. If the collapse didn't kill them, recovering them will.

And I'd imagine that the NTSB might want to hold them as they might hold clues to why the bridge collapsed.

Looks like pickup that is on it's roof. Bet it drove off from above. Made for some wild ride.

That is actually a question that has been asked more than a few times. Some of the cars are completely undamaged, they would not be "automatically totalled" if they can be recovered. That's not how the insurance industry operates.

I asked a State Patrol supervisor about that this AM at that site, he said that fetching them might not be as easy as it looks. He said that there is a chance, (however remote), that lifting the vehicles off might upset the balance of the wreckage of the bridge and make the rest of the work they are doing there worse or more dangerous. There are human remains in that mess, so recovering them is priority number one right now. It's like a miniature 9/11 site right now, just absolutely heartbreaking to see in person. It sucks. :(

I wouldn't want my car back if it fell 60 feet and landed on it's wheels. No doubt it looks ok, but I'm sure frame damage would result.

If you look at the pictures, (including the ones above), some of the cars did not even fall 1 foot, much less 60. The PU truck in the pictures did not fall at all, but it's trapped on a section of the bridge.

Even some of the cars down on the spans in the water had a "soft ride" down; it's pretty obvious if they did not. It's a weird one, insurance-wise.

Those are the ones I wondered about. When you see the pictures, it's obvious that many of them barely moved. I'm sure it was still scary as hell, but when it was over the passengers were able to simply hop out and walk to safety.