From the West Virginia
Historical Society Quarterly
VOLUME XV, NO. 4 October, 2001
by Chris LeRose
On December 15,1967 at approximately 5 p.m.,
the U.S. Highway 35 bridge connecting Point
Pleasant, West Virginia and Kanauga, Ohio
suddenly collapsed into the Ohio River. At the
time of failure, thirty- seven vehicles were
crossing the bridge span, and thirty-one of
those automobiles fell with the bridge. Forty-six individuals perished with the buckling of
the bridge and nine were seriously injured.(1)
Along with the numerous fatalities and injuries,
a major transportation route connecting West
Virginia and Ohio was destroyed, disrupting the
lives of many and striking fear across the
nation.
click here for a video
showing recovery of victims »
The General Corporation and the American
Bridge Company constructed the Highway Bridge in
1928. It was designed as a two-lane eye-bar
suspension type bridge, measuring 2,235 feet in
total length, including the approaches. The
bridge was designed under the specifications set
forth by the American Society of Civil
Engineers. The design criteria the society
required was an H-15 load demand.(2) The load
demand is the weight restrictions and guidelines
that the designing engineers must factor into
their design considerations.
The bridge was dubbed the 'Silver Bridge'
because it was the country's first aluminum
painted bridge. It was designed with a
twenty-two foot roadway and one five-foot
sidewalk. Some unique engineering techniques
were featured on the Silver Bridge such as 'High
Tension' eye-bar chains, a unique anchorage
system, and 'Rocker" towers. The Silver Bridge
was the first eye-bar suspension bridge of its
type to be constructed in the United States. The
bridge's eye-bars were linked together in pairs
like a chain. A huge pin passed through the eye
and linked each piece to the next. Each chain
link consisted of a pair of 2" x 12" bars and
was connected by an 11" pin. The length of each
chain varied depending upon its location on the
bridge.(3)
Some questions were raised when this design
idea was brought forward. What if the two
eye-bars did not share the 4 « million pound
load of the bridge equally? Would the eye- bars
fail under the overloaded stress? The designers
thought they had an answer. (4)
The answer come in the type of material used
for the eye-bars. The American Bridge Company
developed a new heat-treated carbon steel to use
on the construction of the Silver Bridge. This
new steel would allow the individual members of
the bridge to handle more stress. Along with the
two eye-bars sharing the load, the steel could
easily handle the 4 « million pound load. The
newly treated chain steel eye-bars had an
ultimate strength of 105,000 pounds per square
inch (psi) with an elastic limit of 75,000 psi
along with a maximum working stress of 50,000
psi. The eye-bars embedded into the unique
anchorage were also heat treated for an ultimate
strength of 75,000 psi, an elastic limit of
50,000 psi and a maximum unit stress of 30
psi.(5)
Because of the unique design of the
structure, the anchorage design needed to be
innovative. Bedrock was only found at a
considerable depth, making the ordinary gravity
type anchorage impractical. An unusual anchorage
was designed consisting of a reinforced concrete
trough 200 feet long and 34 feet wide filled
with soil and reinforced concrete. The huge
trough was supported on 405 sixteen inch
octagonal reinforced concrete piles in which the
cable pull is resisted by the weight of the
anchorage and by sharing the halves of the
piles.(6)
Another unique design technique used on the
Silver Bridge was the 'Rocker' towers. The
innovative towers, which had a height of 130
feet, 10 1/4 inches, allowed the bridge to move
due to shifting loads and changes in the chain
lengths due to temperature variations. This was
done by placing a curved fitting next to a flat
one at the bottom of the piers. The rocker was
then fitted with dowel rods to keep the
structure from shifting horizontally. With this
type of connection, the piers were not fixed to
the bases.(7)
Upon completion of construction, the bridge
was opened as a toll facility and operated by
the West Virginia-Ohio Bridge Corporation. On
December 26,1941, the state of West Virginia
bought the structure from the bridge company for
$1,040,000. The purchase price included a
$70,000 contract for bridge repairs and
engineering services.(8)
On December 3l, 1951 the structure became a
toll free facility. The bridge underwent a
thorough inspection just prior to the transition
from toll to non-toll facility. On December 21,
1951, Bridge Engineer L. L. Jemison, suggested
the following to H. K. Griffith, West Virginia
State Maintenance Engineer: 1. Repairing the
bridge seat of the upstream side of the Ohio
Abutment. 2. Cutting Ventilator openings in all
of the four anchor chambers and making frames
for same. 3. Encasing the anchor bars inside of
the anchor chambers with concrete. 4. Restoring
the disintegrated concrete of the piers,
anchorages and retaining walls. 5. Waterproofing
the roadway of the anchorages and the approaches
and surfacing same with asphaltic concrete. 6.
Cleaning and painting steel work where
necessary. 7. Revising the Ohio approach to
provide better returns. 8. Extending the
sidewalk along the Ohio approach. 9. Removing
the Toll House. 10.Revising the lighting control
system. 11.Miscellaneous steelwork: Repair
Railing, Clean out holes at bottom of tower
verticals, Furnishing and installing gutters
under expansion devices, Making and installing
bird screens, 12. Restoring concrete around
anchor bars removed for inspection.(9)
Upon receiving Mr. Jemison's letter of intent
for the proposed bridge corrections, the
necessary improvements were made. In addition to
the 1951 inspection and corrections, the bridge
was inspected periodically. These frequent
inspections occurred on July 28, 1955, November
15,1961, and April 8 and 9, 1965. Suggestions
were made to the WV Bridge engineers for
improvements, but not every detail was
considered because of a lack of funding.
Although some corrections were not made, each
inspection did say that the bridge was
structurally safe. Even with the number of
inspections given to the structure, the reason
for its collapse could not have been foreseen
and/or corrected. The technology of the day
could not foresee the tragedy that awaited the
Silver Bridge.(10)
For thirty-nine years the Silver Bridge
stood, allowing passage across the Ohio River.
With the previous inspections, no one conceived
that the structure might fall and collapse into
the riverbed. On that fateful December 15, 1967
evening, tragedy struck. Within seconds, the
Silver Bridge had collapsed killing and injuring
many individuals.
Many people were out buying Christmas trees,
enjoying the holiday season, unaware of the
disaster, until they heard the sound. Some
individuals said, 'the sound of the collapse was
like that of a shotgun." For those who saw the
bridge collapse, they said, "it looked like the
bridge fell like a card deck."(11) Whatever the
case, when the structure fell, horror captivated
the area and lives were changed forever.
Many heroic eyewitnesses tried to help the
victims who fell in the water. Rescue crews were
on the disaster scene within minutes and were
able to save some of the people from drowning in
the Ohio River. Witnesses indicated that many of
the vehicles were floating downstream while
passengers would beat on their windows trying to
escape. One eyewitness described seeing a truck
driver standing on the top of his truck cob
yelling for help as his vehicle slowly floated
downstream in the cold water. William Needham, a
truck driver f rom Kernersville, North Carolina,
barely escaped death. He was in the cab of his
truck driving across the bridge, when the
collapse occurred. He managed to survive, but
his partner in the truck cab never escaped the
water of the Ohio River. His partner was asleep
in the rear cab and had strapped himself in for
safety. When the bridge collapsed, he had no
chance of escaping. Needham claims that the
truck sank to the bottom and that he narrowly
escaped. He broke the window to the cab, grabbed
a box to help himself surface, and barely made
it to the top of the water before he ran out of
breath.(12)
Another survivor, Howard Boggs, of Gailipolis,
Ohio, lost his small family in the fall. His
wife, Marjorie, and seventeen-month-old daughter
were in their vehicle when the bridge collapsed.
He claims that Marjorie noticed that the bridge
was 'quivering' as they became stalled on the
bridge in the heavy rush hour traffic. She then
asked, "What will we do if this thing breaks?"
The next thing Boggs remembers was scrambling
for his life by breaking out his car window.
Sadly, his wife and child perished in the
accident. He could not aid them in their attempt
to be freed from the sinking car.(13)
After the collapse, many residents questioned
why the bridge would suddenly fall into the
river below. Three of the reasons that were
commonly heard were:
1. A supposed 'Sonic Boom' prior to
the collapse.
2. The 'Curse' of Chief Cornstalk.
3. Structural failure of a bridge
member.
The collapsed bridge needed to be thoroughly
inspected before the cause could be determined.
Without concrete reason for the bridge's
failure, every suggested reason was researched
until proven incorrect.(14)
Many people in the West Virginia and Ohio
area claim to have heard a 'Sonic Boom' around
the same time, or just moments before the bridge
fell. Investigators checked with the nearby
military installations, and there were no
aircraft capable of producing a Sonic boom in
the area at the time the bridge dismembered. The
theory was proven false after the researcher's
investigation showed that surrounding buildings
were not damaged. If a sonic boom had occurred
in a residential community, the overpressure
would have caused extensive damage to homes and
other structures in the Point Pleasant area.(15)
Older residents claimed that the cause of the
bridge collapse was "The Curse of Cornstalk." In
1774, the Battle of Point Pleasant took place
between approximately 1,000 white men and 1,000
Indians. The commander of the Indian war party
was Chief Cornstalk, a well-respected and
intelligent Indian leader. During the battle,
Cornstalk could see that defeat was imminent for
his forces. He therefore let his troops make a
crucial decision, either to fight to the death
or surrender. The Indian warriors chose to
surrender. With the surrender, Chief Cornstalk
signed the Treaty of Camp Charlotte.(16) Chief
Cornstalk and his son were later captured and
murdered along with his son at Fort Randolph.
Legend states that in his dying words Chief
Cornstalk, still upset over his troops defeat,
placed a curse of death and destruction upon the
entire Point Pleasant area.(17) Could this be
the reason for the collapse of the Silver
Bridge? After thorough investigations of the
bridges' collapsed structure, 'The Curse of
Cornstalk' was ruled out as a contributing
factor to the collapse of the Silver Bridge.
After extensive studies of the broken
structure members, the cause of failure was
determined. The answer was the unique eye-bar
design made from the newly innovated heat
treated-carbon steel. The old saying, "A chain
is only as strong as its weakest link," turned
out to be a fact in the failure of the Silver
Bridge.(18) The heat-treated carbon steel
eye-bar broke, placing undue stress on the other
members of the bridge. The remaining steel frame
buckled and fell due to the newly concentrated
stresses.
The cause of failure was attributed to a
cleavage fracture in the lower limb of eye-bar
330 at joint C13N of the north eye-bar
suspension chain in the Ohio side span." The
fracture was caused from a minute crack formed
during the casting of the steel eye-bar. Over
the years, stress corrosion and corrosion
fatigue allowed the crack to grow, causing the
failure of the entire structure. At the time of
construction, the steel used was not known for
subduing to corrosion fatigue and stress
corrosion. Inspection prior to construction
would not have been able to notice the miniature
crack. Over the life span of the bridge, the
only way to detect the fracture would have been
to disassemble the eye-bar. The technology used
for inspection at the time was not capable of
detecting such cracks. (19)
Stress corrosion cracking is the formation of
brittle cracks in a normally sound material
through the simultaneous action of a tensile
stress and a corrosive environment.(20) Combined
with corrosion fatigue, which occurs as a result
of the combined action of a cyclic stress and a
corrosive environment, disaster was inevitable
for the Silver Bridge. The two contributing
factors, over the years continued to weaken the
eye-bar and unfortunately the entire structure.
Another major factor that helped corrosion
fatigue and stress corrosion in bringing down
the bridge was the weight of new cars and
trucks. When the bridge was designed, the design
vehicle used was the model-T Ford, which had an
approximate weight of less than 1,500 pounds. In
1967, the average family car weighed 4,000
pounds or more.(21) In 1928, West Virginia law
prohibited the operation of any vehicle whose
gross weight, including its load, was more than
20,000 pounds. In 1967, the weight limit almost
tripled to 60,800 pounds gross, and up to 70,000
with special permits.(22) Civil engineers must
use a projected life span for nearly all
projects, but no one could see that 40 years
after the construction of the Silver Bridge that
traffic loads would more than triple.
Although the collapse of the Silver Bridge
was a major disaster in the West Virginia and
Ohio areas, it also frightened the entire
nation. The St. Mary's bridge, located upstream
and similar in design to the Silver Bridge, was
shut down for inspection after the collapse.(23)
President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered a
nation-wide probe to determine the safety of the
nation's bridges. In 1967 there were 1,800
bridges in the United States which were 40 years
old including 1,100 highway bridges designed for
Model-T traffic. Many federal officials feared
that other structures, built around the some
time to handle Model-T traffic, could face the
same fate as the Silver Bridge.(24)
Even though the collapse of the Silver Bridge
was a disaster, there were positive aspects to
the failure. Bridge inspections are now more
routine and in-depth because of the Silver
Bridge. Engineers are now more knowledgeable
about corrosion fatigue and stress corrosion,
which allows better quality structures to be
designed and built. With today's technology, as
well as better design techniques and materials,
there is hope that a Silver Bridge disaster will
never again take place.
Foot Notes
1.
National Transportation Safety Board, A Highway Accident Report, collapse of
U. S. 35 Highway Bridge,
(Washington: GPO, 1971).
2. Wilson Ballard, "An Eye-bar
Suspension span for the Ohio River,"
Engineering News-Record, June, 1929;
997-1001.
3. Ballard, 997-998.
4. Carl Shermer, "Eye-Bar Bridges and
the Silver Bridge Disaster," Engineer,
Jan- Feb 1968, 20.
5. Ballard, 999.
6. Alden Armangnaz, "Our Worst Bridge
Disaster: Why Did it Happen?" Popular
Science Magazine, March 1968, 104.
7. Shermer, 21.
8. Shermer, 21.
9. Letter of L. L. Jemison to H. K.
Griffith, 21 December 1951, WV
Department of Transportation, State
Archives, Charleston.
10. National Transportation Safety
Board, Highway Accident Report
11. "Bridge Fell Like a Card Deck,"
Charleston Daily Mail, 17 Dec 1967.
12. "Truck Driver Survives Tragedy,"
Charleston Daily Mail, 16, Dec 1967.
13.
Ibid.
14. NTSB Highway Accident Report
15.
Ibid.
16. Otis K. Rice and Stephen W.
Brown, West Virginia, A History,
Lexington: University Press of Kentucky,
1993.
17. "The Curse of Cornstalk?"
Charleston Daily Mail, 17 Dec 1967.
18. Shermer, 20.
19. NTSB High Way Accident Report
20. Corrosion source, "Stress Corrosion
Cracking," Compuserve 7 Oct 2000,
http://64.224.111.143/handbook/testing/scc.htm.
21. "Model-T Bridges Common,"
Charleston Gazette, 20 Dec 1967.
22. "Model-T Bridges Inviting Tragedy,"
Charleston Gazette, 19 Dec 1967.
23. "All Possible Help Pushed by
Governor," Charleston Gazette, 16
Dec 1967.
24. "Model-T Bridges Inviting Tragedy,"
Charleston Gazette, 19 Dec 1967.
Traffic Pattern and locations of vehicles on the
Silver Bridge at time of disaster - click to enlarge
In The Charleston Gazette
December 16, 1967
Pt. Pleasant Span Collapses, 70 Vehicles Plunge
Into River
5 Bodies Recovered, Giant Toll Feared
By George Steele, Staff Writer
POINT PLEASANT - The collapse of a
towering suspension bridge over the Ohio
River here Friday plunged an estimated 60 to
70 vehicles into the cold waters and sent an
untold number of persons to their deaths.
Hours later only five bodies had been
recovered but astounded officials were
certain the death toll would soar.
Only five of the scores of motorists who
were atop the 1,750-foot span when it
crashed into the murky waters during rush
hour traffic at 4:55 p.m. were able to
extricate themselves from submerged vehicles
and make their way to safety.
On the Ohio side, about 250 feet of the
loaded bridge crashed onto land. Four
persons on this part of the bridge were
killed, and eight injured were pulled out of
the tangled steel.
A flotilla of riverboats with high
powered search lights were recruited into
the rescue operations, along with small
craft and a Civil Defense army duck.
Most of the rescue operations, in fact,
were taking place at Kanauga, Ohio. A barge
with a crane tried once to pull a car from
the clutches of the river near the Ohio
bank, but it came up with only a front
bumper and suspension assembly.
Early rescue activity centered on the
Ohio side because the vehicles smashed by
the bridge wreckage there were more
accessible than those obviously strewn along
the bottom of the river.
One tractor - trailer that plunged into
the water apparently was empty because
onlookers watched it slowly float down
river.
Most of the bridge's superstructure was
hidden beneath the water. In midstream only
the concrete piers remained as stark
evidence of the total collapse of the
structure.
Witnesses said the bridge bent sharply to
the north, spilling its contents into the
river, then groaning, went down in
slow-motion on top of the sinking vehicles,
apparently crushing many of them against the
river bottom.
Ambulances and rescue units from towns
and communities on both sides of the river
sped to the scene. They came from as far
away as Charleston.
A man who said he was on the bridge's
approach ramp when it collapsed, said
traffic was moving slowly and the two-lane
span seemed to be packed with cars.
He said it was always full at that time
of the evening. There was some talk among
spectators similar to: "I wonder if Sam was
on the bridge."
Mason County Civil Defense Director John
A. Wilson said it will probably be days
before authorities learn how many persons
perished in the startling accident.
He said his wife was only two blocks from
the structure and saw it fall. She was in
her car waiting for traffic to move so she
could cross into Ohio.
Amateur photographers flocked to the
scene, some waiting helplessly in the dark
for some miracle to happen so they wouldn't
need a flash.
Firemen were shuttled back and forth
across the river to confer during the early
part of the evening.
At about 7:30 p.m., Gallia, Ohio, County
Prosecutor John Epling crossed to West
Virginia to begin organizing a cooperative
recovery operation between the two states.
Later in the evening, Ohio Gov. James A.
Rhodes and West Virginia Gov. Smith arrived
at the disaster scene. At about 10:30 p.m.,
officials agreed to stop operations until
daylight.
Some officials at the scene expressed the
fear the death toll would near 200 and
become one of the greatest river disasters
in history.
As one official pointed out most of the
cars obviously had more than one passenger.
The official, who refused to be quoted,
feared that it would be weeks before all the
bodies could be recovered since the swift
current would carry many far downstream.
Lowell R. Bridwell, the federal highway
commissioner, immediately announced from
Washington that he was sending a team of
investigators to the area today.
Both West Virginia Gov. Smith and Ohio
Gov. Rhodes expressed shock at the extent of
the catastrophe.
After a joint inspection trip, Gov. Smith
issued the following statement to the press:
"Gov. Rhodes and I have just completed a
meeting at state police headquarters in Point
Pleasant coordinating the efforts of the
agencies of both states to alleviate the
suffering and to commence the recovery
operations at the Silver Bridge. "It was a
terrible tragedy, and of course at this time
our prayers and hopes go out to those who
have suffered under this tragedy,
particularly at Christmas time. "We have
directed our road commissioners to commence
an investigation to determine the cause. We
have alerted all of the necessary agencies
of state government who are on the scene
tonight already taking charge of their
respective duties under our emergency
operations."
Meanwhile newspaper offices and radio
stations were flooded with calls from
anxious persons seeking news of overdue
relatives and members of their families.
Here is the list of known dead:
George McManus, a trucker from South
Point, Ohio; Cecil Counts and Melvin
Cantrell, both of Gallipolis Ferry; Leo
Blackman, a trucker from Richmond, Va.; and
an identified woman.
Injured are:
1. Howard Boggs, 24, Bidwell, Ohio;
Pleasant Valley Hospital, Point Pleasant,
cuts and bruises.
2. Paul Scott, Middleport, Ohio; Pleasant
Valley Hospital, not critical.
3. William Edmondson, 38, King, N. C.;
Pleasant Valley Hospital, broken arm and
cuts.
4. William Frank Wamsley, 28, Point
Pleasant; Pleasant Valley Hospital, not
critical.
5. William Needham Jr., 27, Ashboro, N. C.;
Pleasant Valley Hospital, back fracture, not
critical.
6. Samuel F. Ellis, 29, Winston-Salem, N.
C.; Holzer Hospital, Gallipolis, Ohio,
multiple face and head cuts; satisfactory
condition.
7. Frank Nunn, 27, Greenville, N. C.; Holzer
Hospital, back fracture, satisfactory
condition.
8. Mrs. Margaret Cantrell, 35, Gallipolis
Ferry, wife of the dead Melvin Cantrell;
Holzer Hospital, shock.
9. John Fishel, Petersburg, Va.; Holzer
Hospital, leg and foot burns.
- 30 -
All Possible Help Pushed By Governor
By John G. Morgan, Staff Writer
The news of the Ohio River disaster
reached Gov. Hulett C. Smith about 5:30 p.m.
Friday while he was attending a meeting of a
14-county citizens groups seeking reforms in
the State Road Commission.
Deeply concerned Paul Crabtree. Smith's
executive assistant and a resident of Point
Pleasant, interrupted the meeting to tell
the Governor about the collapse of the
Silver Bridge.
One of Smith's first comments was: "We
have got to find a way to get the cars out
of the river." He said he and his staff
would seek all possible help from state
police, civil defense units, the National
Guard, the Coast Guard and the Corps of
Engineers.
State Road Commissioner Burl A. Sawyers
said he had "no theory at the moment" on
what may have caused the bridge to collapse.
He added that one of the most important
things now facing the SRC is to "start
planning for replacement" of the bridge.
"I don't know the extent of the damage,
but it is a very serious emergency," said
Sawyers. "We will have to make an analysis."
Smith quickly went into conference with
Sawyers and other top SRC staff officials
who were at the citizens meeting. Later,
Smith, Sawyers and some of the officials
went to Point Pleasant.
The Silver Bridge was built as a two-lane
toll facility by the General Corp. and
American Bridge Co. in 1928. The gleaming
structure was hailed as an excellent
engineering achievement. Residents of West
Virginia and Ohio were proud to drive over
it.
The additional statistics about the
bridge were released by the SRC:
It was an I-bar suspension type brid[g]e,
measuring 1,750 feet in total length. The
state bought it from the bridge company on
Dec. 26, 1941. The structure was made a
toll-free facility on Dec. 18, 1951.
- 30 -
'Now I Know What It's Like to Drown'
Truck Driver Survives Tragedy
By Sandra Grant, Staff Writer
POINT PLEASANT - "Now I know what it's
like to drown. I expected to die," said Bill
Needham, a 27-year-old truck driver from
Kernersville, N. C.
Needham was one of the survivors of the
tragic plunge of the "Silver Bridge" into
the Ohio River Friday at Point Pleasant
carrying untold numbers of hapless motorists
to their deaths.
A patient in Pleasant Valley Hospital
here with a broken back, Needham thinks his
truck driving partner is dead.
"He was in the sleeping berth in the rear
of the cab," Needham said from his hospital
bed, "and I think he had strapped himself
in. He had no chance. The cab went all the
way to the bottom."
Needham said he was still pinned inside
the cab when it went under water and ''was
running out of breath when I noticed a
little crack in the window and finally
forced it down - I managed to grab a box and
hang on."
Howard Boggs, 24, of Gallipolis, Ohio,
also a patient in the same hospital with
cuts and bruises, fears he lost his wife,
Marjorie and 17-month- old daughter in the
plunge.
Boggs said he and his small family were
returning to their home after visiting
relatives in West Virginia when they became
stalled in traffic on the bridge.
"My wife noticed the bridge was
quivering," he related tearfully, "and asked
what would we do if this thing broke. Then,
suddenly it broke and we went down."
Boggs said he and his wife had just
finished buying Christmas presents for the
little girl.
Bill Edmondson, a 38-year-old Hennis
Freight Lines driver from King, N. C., said
he apparently also lost his partner to the
water.
"The thing went down so fast I don't know
how I got out of the cab," recalled
Edmondson who was admitted to the same
hospital with a broken right arm and head
cuts.
"I was starting down the Ohio side of the
bridge when it suddenly started falling
sideways. I didn't hear any noise or
anything.
"When I got in the water I got hold of a
seat and that was all that kept me up until
they pulled me out."
Edmondson, who figures he was in the
water at "least 10 minutes before he was
pulled into a motorboat, said he looked into
his rear mirror as he inched across the span
and saw the bridge "loaded bumper to bumper
with traffic as far back as I could see."
After he surfaced, Edmondson said, he
could see only one other person swimming in
the water.
Other survivors at this small, overworked
hospital were either too dazed to recall
what happened or under heavy sedation.
One man, Frank Wamsley of Point Pleasant,
just shook his head when approached for
comment.
Another of the injured, who was pulled
from the water by a passing tow boat was
Paul Scott of Ohio. He likewise had no
comment.
- 30 -
'I Looked Up...the Bridge Disappeared,' Teachers
Says
Point Pleasant (AP) - "I looked up and it
was gone. There was nothing, nothing at all.
The whole bridge had disappeared into the
river."
High school teacher Todd Mayes of Point
Pleasant was about to turn onto the ramp at
the Ohio end of the Silver Bridge over the
Ohio River, just seconds after it collapsed.
"Traffic was bumper-to-bumper," the
25-year-old Mayes said in a telephone
interview from his Point Pleasant home. "I
don't know how many cars were on it, but
traffic stretched all the way across the
bridge."
Mayes said he is normally on the bridge
by 5 p.m. He teaches a class in Ohio to
children who are unable to attend school
because of disabilities and the class ends
at 16 minutes to 5.
"My class isn't more than five minutes
from the bridge. But I stopped at a garage
near the bridge ramp today to get a can of
touchup paint for the car. I could have been
on that bridge.
"The superstructure of the bridge must
have all those cars and trucks pinned
underneath it," he said. "The only thing
floating was a trailer truck, floating down
river. And I guess there was a truck driver
in the cab.
"You know, the land juts out under the
bridge on the Ohio side and lots of cars and
trucks and steel and cement were down there.
It was hard to see people, but I could hear
them yelling and moaning.
"I tried to help two people brought up.
One guy's head was badly cut and the other
guy was cut on the head and body.
"There's nothing left," said Mayes, who
has been teaching at Kyger Creek High School
for one year. "The only thing you can see is
the pier on the Ohio side and the pier over
on the West Virginia side.
Mrs. Nancy Mayes, Todd's mother, said "I
get the shivers when I think of it. Todd
always gets home just after 5 o'clock. He
could have been on it today.
- 30 -
Bridge Fell Like Card Deck; Fantastic, Witnesses
Relate
By HOLGER JENSEN, Associated Press Writer
GALLIPOLIS, Ohio (AP) - It was a slow
night for selling Christmas trees. H. L.
Whobrey had a good location - at the corner
of highways 7 and 35, catching all the
bridge traffic from Point Pleasant, W.Va. -
but it was cold, and most of the steady
stream of commuters passed him by.
He made his first sale, and was just
loading a tree in the trunk of a woman's car
when he hear the noise.
"It sounded like one of those ordinary
fender benders on the bridge," he said. "We
have them all the time."
Dick Kuhn was filling a customer's car
with gasoline at the corner service station
when he heard what "sounded like a shotgun,"
he said. "I thought some nut was shooting
ducks under the bridge."
Lee Long was taking a coffee break at the
Gallipolis Fire Department when the alarm
came in.
The tragedy of a bridge collapsing
brought these three men together. They were
among the first witnesses - and the shock of
it still glazed their eyes hours later.
"I saw it, but I don't believe it," said
Whobrey. "The bridge just keeled over,
starting slowly on the Ohio side then
following like a deck of cards to the West
Virginia side.
"It was fantastic. There was a big flash
and a puff of smoke when the last of the
bridge caved in. I guess the power line
snapped.
"I saw three to four people swimming
around in the water screaming. I couldn't do
anything. I just stood there and watched.
Then I saw a city ice and fuel boat come and
pick them up.
"There was a lot of junk floating around.
I saw this car float past. It looked like
there were people inside beating their hands
on the windows."
Whobrey said he saw the last driver who
got off the bridge before it collapsed.
"He parked in my Christmas tree lot. He
looked like a ghost. He just sat there -
then he was sick right in the car."
Kuhn ran to the riverbank behind his
service station and, saw a truck floating
past.
"There was a guy hanging onto the roof
yelling his head off. I think they got him
off."
Long, a fire department veteran, was one
of the first rescuers at the scene.
"It was one hell of a mess," he said.
"People were crawling out of the cars in all
that bridge wreckage (where part of the
bridge fell on land) screaming and moaning.
There were people in the water. We couldn't
see very much, but we could sure hear it.
"There was a tractor-trailer rig hanging
on the riverbank, partly in the water. The
driver was hanging from the open door of the
cab, dead.
"Then we heard this banging from the
back. We yelled and it was the driver's
partner who'd been sleeping in the back.
"We worked two hours to cut him out of
there. He was yelling at us all the time to
get him out of there. I guess he thought
that the trailer was going to slip into the
water.
"But when we got him out, he was okay.
Standing there naked except for his shorts.
Man, was he shivering.
"Then he saw his partner, and he just
broke up."
25 Years Later
-
Bridge Collapse Still Haunts W. Va. Town
Sunday Gazette-Mail
By Terry Wallace, December 13, 1992
POINT PLEASANT (AP) - Bill McCormick
cannot forget the wrenching sound of
twisting steel and the heart-stopping sight
across the Ohio River when the Silver Bridge
fell down 25 years ago.
McCormick, Odell Hysell and others were
working on a cold fuel dock on Dec. 15,
1967, not far from the two-lane suspension
bridge connecting Ohio and West Virginia,
about 35 miles northwest of Charleston.
The men dashed for their boats, gunned
their diesel engines and sped toward the
wash of sinking cars, tractor-trailers and
collapsed metal. The river was a
body-numbing 43 degrees.
"When we went out, we saw two men hanging
on to their truck and debris. I tried to
pull in one and Odell tried to pull in
another," McCormick said. "It was very cold.
In fact, the last fellow we pulled in, a
[tow boat] captain for the Ohio River Co.,
said that if we hadn't gotten there when we
did, he couldn't have held on."
The collapse of the U.S. 35 bridge
between Point Pleasant and Kanauga, Ohio,
killed 46 motorists.
It was also a turning point in the way
American engineers think of bridges,
according to Lisle Williams of Pittsburgh, a
bridge designer and chairman of next year's
International Bridge Conference.
"The Silver Bridge was one of about
550,000 bridges across the country that
basically received no attention once they
were constructed," he said. "Once they were
put up, people kind of thought they'd be
there forever."
After years of corrosion and neglect, a
crucial joint in the 39-year-old bridge's
suspension system snapped and the normal
vibrations of heavy rush-hour traffic shook
it apart. Dozens of cars and trucks followed
the structure into the river.
"You need a catastrophic failure prior to
gaining everybody's attention," Williams
said.
Some fear it could happen again.
"There have been some changes, but I
wouldn't say that it was particularly any
better now," said Henry Jasny, attorney for
the Ralph Nader-affiliated Advocates for
Highway and Auto Safety in Washington, D.C.
"I'd say that the odds of such a collapse
today are equal," Jasny said.
Since the Silver Bridge disaster, new
federal standards require bridge inspections
every two years. But, Jasny said, the
quality of inspections varies from state to
state.
For example, he said, a 100-foot section
of the Interstate 95 bridge over the Mianus
River in Connecticut collapsed in June 1983,
killing three people. Investigators blamed
the collapse on corrosion.
A survey of state engineers in the
November's Better Roads magazine showed that
34 percent, or 206,904 bridges of the
nation's approximately 600,750 bridges are
substandard.
The survey showed 55 percent of bridges
are substandard in West Virginia and
Massachusetts, the worst states, with 3,556
bridges and 2,788 bridges substandard,
respectively.
Mississippi and Maine, each with 51
percent, and Hawaii, 50 percent, also had
more than half of their bridges rated
substandard, according to the survey.
But the survey showed the best state is
Arizona, with 7 percent, or 417 bridges,
substandard.
States with less than 20 percent of
substandard bridges are Idaho, 10 percent;
Nevada, 11 percent; Wyoming and Utah, each
with 12 percent; Connecticut, 15 percent;
and California, 19 percent, according to the
survey.
Thomas Zimmie, a professor of civil
engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute in Troy, N.Y., said bridge
inspections have improved in the past five
years.
"They've really gotten their act
together," he said. "You've got companies
here that do nothing but bridge
inspections."
Zimmie helped investigate the April 1987
collapse of the Schoharie Creek Bridge on
the New York State Thruway near Albany. Ten
people died when, Zimmie said, a flood
undermined the bridge supports, a phenomenon
called "scour."
Zimmie agreed hazards can go unnoticed
and unsuspected until disaster strikes.
"There's always going to be something
that pops up," he said. "Who could have
predicted 'scour'?"
The 1,750-foot Silver Bridge, opened in
1928 and named for the color of its
aluminum-based paint, was different from
familiar suspension bridges like the Golden
Gate in San Francisco and the Brooklyn and
Verrazano-Narrows in New York.
Instead of relying upon massive spun
cables for support, the Silver Bridge's
roadway hung from carbon-steel chains,
which, in turn, were supported by two towers
and were anchored on either shore.
Officials said about 6,600 vehicles used
the bridge daily. It had no load limit.
According to a National Transportation
Safety Board report, a joint in the chain
supporting the roadway snapped just outside
the bridge's Ohio-side tower.
Traffic vibrations and the weight of the
deck and the 37 vehicles on it, including
two gravel trucks and five tractor-trailer
rigs, pulled down on the Ohio-side chains
and toppled the Ohio tower, according to the
report.
The collapse then toppled the West
Virginia tower and pulled the rest of the
bridge into the river, according to the
report.
Only the bridge's West Virginia approach
and four piers remained standing.
The board found that the Silver Bridge
had not been thoroughly inspected for 16
years. Since then, it said, the chains were
inspected only from the bridge deck by road
workers using binoculars.
"Evidence of severe corrosion was found
in many portions of the bridge structure,"
the report said. "Periodic complete
inspections would have furnished much more
detailed information to the state concerning
the condition of all vital parts of the
bridge."
Paul Wedge, an official with the
Boilermakers' union and former president of
the Mason County school board, died with his
wife in the disaster.
Son Jimmy Joe Wedge, later Point
Pleasant's mayor, was coaching the Point
Pleasant High School basketball team and was
expecting his parents at the game.
"The longer the game went on, the harder
it got to focus on it, I guarantee you
that," he said.
John A. Wilson, then Mason County's Civil
Defense director, ordered all roads into
Point Pleasant blocked to keep out
spectators. Wilson, now 77, recalled his
move outraged at least one merchant who
complained of the effect on his Christmas
sales.
The Ohio River was reopened to barge
traffic 36 hours after the collapse, but
bodies continued to be recovered as late as
the end of January 1968.
Wilson's voice still trembles when he
recalls a man who escaped his car but his
wife and child did not. He remembered a
brother of a dead man who came to remove
gifts from the wreckage of a car to assure
the surviving family some sort of Christmas.
"Every time I pass that site, I think
about it," Wilson said.
President Johnson declared an emergency
the day of the collapse. Four days later.
Sen. Jennings Randolph, D-W.Va., chairman of
the Senate Public Works Committee, announced
hearings that led to the first federal
bridge inspection requirements.
The Ohio River bridge at St. Marys,
W.Va., which was of similar design and
vintage to the Silver Bridge, was closed
immediately, never to reopen.
The Silver Bridge made the intersection
of Main and Sixth streets one of the busiest
in Point Pleasant. Today, it is so quiet
that cars park in the middle of Sixth
Street.
Exactly two years after the collapse, a
new Ohio River bridge was opened between
Mason County, W.Va., and Gallia County, Ohio
The 1,800-foot, four-lane Silver Memorial
Bridge was built just south of Point
Pleasant of a rigid cantilever-truss design.
Point Pleasant had a thriving downtown
and was home to 5,800 residents. Today,
bypassed, Point Pleasant's downtown is still
trying to recover from the loss of traffic,
and the town's population is down to about
5,000.
"It's not just the personal impact, but
the overall impact on the community, the
county and our immediate area. Our economy
has never recovered," Wilson said.
A simple monument stands where the West
Virginia approach to the bridge used to be.
Set in a concrete semicircle, red bricks are
inscribed with the names of the 46 people
who died on the bridge.
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