Quote:
Originally Posted by justabeachbrat
Prayers to all affected by it.
For Ohio, (southestern?) this must be really erie. Some of my relatives come from Point Pleasant (WV), where the sliver bridge (don't know if that was its official name), collapsed into the Ohio River , it connected WV with Gallapolis, OH in 1969. It was a major route for east/west trucking and way for workers to the atomic power plant upriver. My great aunt, and grandma had many friends in area. Several people died in collapse. The movie "Mothman Prophicies (sp wrong, i know, spell check is acting up.) was based on folklore surrounding the collapse.
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Southeastern Ohio would be fairly accurate, and the bridge was named The Silver Bridge.
I wonder if your relatives might have known my great aunt and uncle who was the city auditor of Gallipolis at that time.
I remember the incident because I was on the air on a Sunday afternoon at a commercial radio station in Athens, Ohio -- probably 50 miles from Gallipolis. I received a call from the local Ohio State Highway Patrol (Athens) post that the bridge had fallen. Having no way to check myself, I called the Columbus bureau of the Associated Press and the word got out from there. We were the first media outlet to have the story. Of course our news director left for the site immediately. I also called a photographer friend at the Ohio University TV station where I also worked at the time and he shot some of the first footage of the scene. I think the year would have been 1967, though because I was no longer with the station in 1969.
The bridge spanned the Ohio River between Kanauga, Ohio (close to Gallipolis) and Point Pleasant, West Virginia. This event also happened in the late afternoon, and over 40 people were killed.
Here is a link to a story on that disaster.
http://www.wvculture.org/HiStory/dis...rbridge03.html
As of 9:00 PM Denver time today, the death toll in Minneapolis stands at seven and authorities expect it to rise.
Fortunately, our neice in the Twin Cities is OK.
I've also driven across the 35W bridge in the past.
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