This is insane and heartbreaking:

Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan said cars are still trapped beneath the water under crumpled concrete and that some bodies are in there.

During rescue operations Wednesday night, divers saw victims in submerged cars as darkness postponed the work.

Dolan said this morning at a news conference that several rescue workers had to make the difficult decision of leaving them there because it was unsafe to attempt a rescue.

He said several of the trapped motorists asked his officers and fire fighters to say goodbye to their loved ones.

“The recovery involving those vehicles and the people who may be in those vehicles is going to take a long time,” Dolan said. “We’re dealing with the Mississippi River. We’re dealing with currents, and we’re going to have to do it slowly and safely.” (from the Star Tribune, emphasis mine)

Update: CNN included this bit:

“There’s an individual case where an individual was severely injured and was talking to a medical personnel and was able to say his goodbyes to his family [before] he passed on,” Dolan told a news conference.

I hope that means there weren’t any victims left alive in submerged cars that rescuers had to give up on due to the darkness. That’s what the Star Trib report makes it sound like, and that’s just horrifying. The CNN report is still heartbreaking, but sounds like a situation where nothing could be done.