A Double Whammy Anniversary

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Yesterday I was busy doing laundry and reading history. I discovered it was a “double whammy” anniversary of sorts, a day when TWO bridges collapsed (in different years) in the region. The first one happened here in Louisville (technically, in Jeffersonville, on the Indiana side of the bridge), and it was an “act of nature.” On December 15, 1893 the Big Four Bridge was still under construction. Windy conditions caused a construction crane to topple over into the bridge, sending 41 workers into the Ohio River. Twenty were rescued; 21 were not. There’s a marker commemorating the tragedy in Big Four Station, the park area that leads to the Jeffersonville entrance of the bridge. The bridge itself, once a railroad crossing, is now a pedestrian bridge that is great to walk in the summer. The more recent tragedy occurred on December 15, 1967, also going over the Ohio River. This was the infamous Silver Bridge Collapse. That bridge, built in 1928 as a “modern wonder,” suffered catastrophic failure of one of the eyebars. You’ve heard the expression, “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” That’s especially true when you’re talking about a suspension bridge. Filled at rush hour with workers and holiday shoppers transversing between Gallipolis, Ohio and Point Pleasant, West Virginia, the bridge fell into the Ohio River. Five people were pulled from the river in a matter of minutes thanks to nearby boats that went to rescue work immediately after the collapse, but 46 others died. Two of the bodies were never recovered. That disaster prompted action, and within a year bridge inspections were mandated by federal law. Two years to the day after the bridge fell, its replacement, named the Silver Memorial Bridge, was opened. Unlike the Big Four Bridge, there is a legend behind the Silver Bridge: Mothman. This was the subject of a book and a movie (The Mothman Prophecies), and they even have a statue of the thing in Point Pleasant, WV. (The scientists and engineers stuck by their proclamation that an eyebar failure caused the collapse.) A sad day in bridge history in this part of the world. Here is a very short video about the Silver Bridge collapse. There are much longer documentaries on YouTube if you’re interested.