MINNEAPOLIS -- The head of the U.S. Transportation Department is sending out a warning to all states about bridge construction work in the aftermath of last week's collapse in Minneapolis.

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Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said during construction or repair projects, planners need to consider the impact of the additional weight on the structures. She said the National Transportation Safety Board is looking into that angle as it investigates the collapse of the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River.

Investigators are checking reports of wobbling on the bridge and say they're also concerned about steel plates used to tie beams together.

A company that was working on the bridge denies one of its workers spotted unusual swaying in the days before the collapse.

Five people are confirmed dead. Navy divers are still searching the river for eight others who are missing and presumed to have died.

Crane Use Delayed

Although two large cranes are ready to begin work at the site of the collapsed bridge in Minneapolis, they won't be put into service for at least a week.

That's because officials want to give divers more time to continue probing the wreckage of the I-35W bridge in the Mississippi River. Navy and FBI divers returned to the murky waters Wednesday morning.

The divers are doing "a very meticulous, hand-over-hand search of the scene," said their spokesman, Senior Chief Dave Nagle.

The teams are attempting to explore deeper into the bridge debris than local dive teams that have been working since the Aug. 1 collapse, said police Capt. Mike Martin.

He said he expects it to be at least a week before cranes start regularly hauling out large pieces of debris.

16 Arrested For Allegedly Crossing Perimeter

Meanwhile, police have arrested 16 people for allegedly crossing the collapse site perimeter near the Interstate 35W bridge.

Two people were arrested on Tuesday, authorities said.

As reported by the Star Tribune, the new perimeter is being secured by fences at least 8 feet high, and motion detectors and cameras will allow police to monitor the scene using the city's Wireless Minneapolis network.

The citywide wireless network won't be operational until the end of 2007, when it will become available to all Minneapolis residents and businesses. Still, emergency responders were able to use the network to share information during and after the collapse.

Sending digital maps increased efficient transportation onsite during the rescue efforts. Now, 24-hour surveillance helps police keep an eye on the site perimeter and keep intruders away from potentially dangerous debris.

Wireless cameras on the 10th Avenue Bridge overlook the I-35W bridge, and provide live views of the site to emergency planners and workers in the Emergency Operations Center and Incident Command Centers.

The cameras are also used to track the progress of the recovery operations.

Road Crews Used Jackhammers Day Of Collapse

Road crews used jackhammers to remove concrete from the Interstate 35W bridge the day the span collapsed, but state officials declined to say Wednesday whether they believe the work contributed to the disaster.

For the first time Wednesday, the Minnesota Department of Transportation detailed the bridge deck repairs that were under way when the structure suddenly plummeted into the Mississippi River.

“We’re not going to speculate about the cause,” said Bob McFarlin, assistant to the state transportation commissioner. “We’ll leave that to the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board).”

The road work has been a focus of discussion among the public and engineering experts since the Aug. 1 collapse. State officials have repeatedly said the maintenance work was routine.

“The deck has nothing to do with the structure,” McFarlin said. “It’s just the deck.”

The $9 million repair began in July. Progressive Contractors, an experienced road construction company based in St. Michael, Minn., was resurfacing the bridge’s concrete deck and completing repairs to lighting and guard rails.

The project was about 70 percent complete, said Liz Benjamin, a state construction engineer overseeing the work. The job mainly entailed grinding off the top 2 inches of the road’s surface and repaving with new concrete.

Recovery Cranes Move In

Construction cranes loom over the site of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, but they’ll stand idle until divers hunting for bodies trapped amid the concrete and steel wreckage declare they’ve done all they can by hand.

"Divers don’t want us to touch or mess with anything while they’re in the water," said Kevin Gutknecht, a Minnesota Department of Transportation spokesman on Wednesday. "Until we get the go-ahead from the NTSB and the recovery effort, we’re standing by."

Navy and FBI dive teams, considered the best underwater search-and-recovery specialists in the world, continued probing debris inch-by-inch. A week after the collapse, eight people remain missing. Authorities have confirmed five deaths.

At some point, perhaps within days, the divers may ask crane crews to begin lifting heavy pieces of debris. St. Paul-based Carl Bolander & Sons, which landed a $15 million contract to remove the debris, has marshaled equipment and is ready to begin work when called, Gutknecht said.

For now, though, the recovery mission proceeds largely by hand. Local divers did what they could, coping with murky water, swift currents and dangers posed by twisted metal and unstable debris. (Read: Cranes Ready At Bridge, Waiting As Divers Search)

Flags are flying at half-staff at the Capitol Building in St. Paul on Wednesday as Minnesota honors the victims of the bridge collapse.

Video Captures Scene

New video from the Minnesota Department Of Transportation captured the scene of the bridge collapse at the time it happened last Wednesday.

Bridge Collapse Caught On Tape

The traffic camera view is seen pointing away from the river. In the video, traffic can be seen coming to a stop as it approaches the bridge, while the roadway empties in the lane coming off the bridge -- and behind the camera.

A camera operator then turns the lens around to the bridge, revealing a dusty cloud and the missing bridge. It also shows drivers not caught in the collapse hopping out of their cars and running toward where the bridge had been.

Meanwhile, even with victims still missing and debris clogging the Mississippi River, Minnesota is rushing to replace the collapsed bridge.

The state's first deadline was Wednesday in an aggressive schedule to open a new span by the end of next year. By morning, designers, builders and other firms that want a piece of the project must submit their track records to the state. Officials aim to issue contracts in September.

Work could begin late fall and continue, weather permitting, through the winter. (Read: State Rushes To Rebuild Bridge)

“Normally, a bridge of this magnitude would take three years,” Khaled Mahmoud, chairman of the Bridge Engineering Association in New York City, said Tuesday. “This project, of course, is on a fast track. Everyone understands this is an emergency situation.”

Money shouldn’t be a huge stumbling block. President George W. Bush signed a bill dedicating $250 million in federal funding for the project. The state hasn’t said for sure how much a new bridge would cost, but experts said the project probably would need about $300 million.

The legislation waives the $100 million federal limit per state for emergency relief funds. The money itself still needs to be appropriated by Congress in future legislation.

The measure allows for some of the money to be used to reimburse Minnesota for additional public transportation costs incurred as a result of the bridge's collapse.

The government has already released $5 million to help with efforts such as rerouting traffic around the disaster site.