Minneapolis Bridge Collapse a Repeat in American History

Yesterday's tragic collapse of a Minneapolis Bridge reminded me of another tragic event similar to this that I learned of from my Grandparents. I recall stories from my grandmother who lived not far from the tragedy of the Silver Bridge in WV. I recall her hesitation when crossing a bridge; in fact she was never able to drive over a bridge herself and kept her eyes closed the entire time we crossed. My sisters and I thought that she was just being silly, but little to our knowledge this was all because of the horrific bridge collapse in Point Pleasant, WV. You may have heard of the incident through the book that was written about it years later by John A. Keel or the movie that was made in 2002 starring Richard Gere called, "The Mothman Prophecies".

In 1967 the Silver Bridge connected West Virginia and Ohio suddenly collapsed killing 46 people. It was on December 15 and the Silver Bridge was choked with traffic. Accounts from on lookers say that it took only minutes for the enter bridge to just disappear. Of course, at that time the Silver Bridge was 40 years old and was in need of repair. Of the 37 cars passing over the 2,235-foot bridge that day 31 were dropped into the freezing waters of the Ohio River. Forty-six people were killed and the nine who survived were seriously injured.

Much like today the question that was left to the community was why did this happen? What could have caused a bridge to just fold like a deck of cards into the waters below? Some of the suggestions of the collapse of the Silver Bridge were structural issues, the Curse of Cornstalk, and a sonic boom. Some of the residence of Point Pleasant recalled hearing a sonic boom just before the bridge collapsed. This was ruled out as a possibility since there was no other evidence of structural damage that would have been caused by a sonic boom and the fact that there was no aircraft capable of creating a sonic boom in the area at the time.

Some of the older residence insisted that it was the Curse of Chief Cornstalk. Cornstalk was an Indian Chief that had went to battle in the Point Pleasant area and was defeated. Upon his death it is said that he placed a curse on the enter area. This theory was ruled out when structural integrity of the bridge was found to be faulty. The bridge had previously been inspected in 1965 and was found then to be structurally sound, but upon inspection after the accident it was discovered that in fact it was not structurally sound. It was also noted that with an inspection even on the day of the accident it would not have been determined to be hazardous. In fact the inspections and technology at the time would not have caught the defect or been able to correct it. A cleavage fracture in one of the eye bars caused undue stress on the other members of the bridge an ultimately setting into action a chain of events that ended in disaster.

With the Minneapolis bridge disaster today we can look at the similarities in the two events. The Minneapolis Bridge was built in 1967 the same year of the Silver Bridge collapse. Both the Minneapolis and Silver Bridges at the point of their demise were around 40 years old and needed repairs. Although we cannot rule out other factor completely yet all reports thus far are suggesting structural failure. The Minneapolis Bridge had also passed inspections in both 2005 and 2006. The Minneapolis Bridge was under bumper-to-bumper traffic just like the Silver Bridge in WV. Although the Minneapolis disaster is still on going it looks to be that the death toll currently at seven is expected to significantly rise with today beginning as a recovery effort instead of a rescue effort.

The event in 1967 of the Silver Bridge collapse caused America and the World to take a closer inspection at bridge safety and structural soundness. This caused an increase of bridge inspections and maintance. Today's tragedy of the Minneapolis Bridge is surely going to also cause a raise inspections that may have been become more and more relaxed over the past 40 years since the last major bridge collapse.

"The Collapse of the Silver Bridge", Chris LeRose (http://www.wvculture.org/history/wvhs1504.html), "7 Killed in Minneapolis Bridge Collapse", PATRICK CONDON and GREGG AAMOT(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070802/ap_on_re_us/minnesota_bridge_collapse).