Bob Roberts of Huntington
My wife and I and two daughters were residents of Point Pleasant, W.Va., at the time of the collapse of the Silver Bridge. In fact, we were on the bridge some two hours before its collapse into the Ohio River.
It was not unusual for our family members and other residents of the community to travel the bridge several times a day. The towns of Gallipolis, Ohio, and Point Pleasant were very close neighbors, and it was not unusual to live in one of the towns and work in the other or shop and do business in both communities. I was employed at the Goodyear Chemical Plant in Apple Grove, W.Va., and approximately 40 percent of our 500 employees resided in Ohio and depended on the Silver Bridge for their connection to their jobs.
At about 3:30 p.m. on the day of the disaster, my family and I were returning from Gallipolis after doing some Christmas shopping. Traffic was heavy, and we had been delayed on the bridge for several minutes while traffic was clearing. It was not unusual to be held up on the bridge during heavy traffic hours because there were traffic lights on both ends of the bridge. On this particular day and while sitting on the bridge waiting for traffic to move, my wife and I both noticed the car shaking. I thought it was due to my children playing in the back seat, and I told them to settle down. My wife replied that it was not the children making the car shake, it was the bridge. I remember her saying at that time “this bridge is going to fall one of these days,” to which I replied, “Whoever heard of a bridge falling?”
The traffic cleared and I went home with the kids, and she went to work at her beauty shop in Point Pleasant. Later that day at about 5 p.m., my wife called me to see if I had returned to Gallipolis to pick up some trousers that I had purchased at Haskin-Tanners Men Shop. I told her I had not returned yet, and she advised me not to make the trip because one of her customers had reported that there was a problem with the bridge. She wasn’t sure what the problem was at that point.
Curiosity got the best of me, so I decided to drive downtown to see if there was a problem with the bridge. Traffic was starting to accumulate around the bridge area, but I was able to park within feet of the bridge entrance and adjacent to the Point Pleasant theater. I walked over to the bridge entrance and couldn’t believe my eyes. The bridge was gone! It was getting dark, and I could see the concrete piers that supported the bridge structure but the bridge had disappeared. I could see several partially submerged automobiles but not much else. Police were clearing the area, and I returned home in total disbelief of what had happened in our little town of Point Pleasant.
Four of our fellow Goodyear employees died in that disaster, and several others barely missed that same fate. One of the carpools having five of our employees was the last car remaining on the Ohio side, and everything behind it fell into the river. A light pole fell across the hood of their car, but they suffered no injuries.
Unfortunately, the tragedy did not end with the falling of the bridge for employees at the Goodyear Plant. After the bridge fell, the nearest connection across the Ohio River for our employees who lived in Ohio was the Pomeroy/Middleport bridge, which made for an approximate two-hour round trip. The other option was to travel on the ferry boat, which often was more than a two-hour wait and not dependable to be running on schedule. So, the other option that some of our employees chose to use, particularly the shift workers, was to use their own small motorboats and dock them on both sides of the river near Gallipolis Locks & Dam.
This worked out OK for most, but it was a long, cold walk from the riverbank to the plant. And as fate might have it, one very cold night in January or February, the motor failed on one of the small boats containing four of our employees, and they were swept underneath a river barge. Two of the four occupants died in that accident.
Dec. 15, 1967, will be entrenched in the memories of many people of these communities for years to come.
Dale W. Harding of Milton
I was home on a 30-day leave from the Air Force, having just returned from a year in Vietnam. My parents lived in Milton, and most of my mother’s family lived up north in Ohio in a little town of Gilmore, near the Canton/Akron area. My aunt and uncle, Gwendolen and Rammer Davis, and their grandson, Richard Davis, were making the trip to Milton for an early family Christmas get-together and to see me while I was home on leave.
They were traveling down the Ohio side of the river and were 10 minutes away from the Silver Bridge when it fell into the cold waters of the river. Traffic was backed up for miles, and everyone was in a state of shock.
My parents were worried sick because my aunt and uncle were late on arrival in Milton, and they had heard the reports of the bridge falling. However, they didn’t know which route the Davises had taken. They arrived about two hours late and had to continue down the Ohio side of the river and cross over into West Virginia at Huntington. When they did arrive, my aunt was hysterical. Had they been 10 minutes later, they too would have plunged into those dark waters.
Needless to say that was a sleepless night for many and a long-lasting sleep for others.
Suzi Brodof of Huntington
I will never forget the day the bridge collapsed. I was a freshman at Ohio University and was coming home to Huntington for my Christmas vacation on Dec. 15. I rode across the Silver Bridge in the Greyhound bus as it was starting to get dark. My father picked me up at the Huntington Greyhound bus station and took me to our house.
When we got in the door, we found my mother sitting in front of the TV watching the news and crying. She had just heard the news that the bridge had collapsed and knew the bus I was on would have just crossed it. I will never forget the look on her face when she saw me and realized that I was OK. I realized then that when it is your time, it is your time.
Ever since that day, I have always felt a little uneasy when I cross over any bridge, but I do know for sure that God was watching over me that day.
Carole Newman of Barboursville
I was 19 years old when the tragedy occurred.
I had just gotten off work that day when my sister’s boyfriend came by and told me what had happened.
Her boyfriend was Eugene Edmonds, who, sadly, is no longer with us. He was a professional photographer and needed to go to Point Pleasant and take some pictures of the terrible tragedy.
Eugene used his press card to get my sister and I right down on the banks of the Ohio River.
What we witnessed that day put me in utter shock. There were cars and trucks upside down in the river. They looked like those little toy trucks that kids like. There were also big pieces of steel floating in the water, along with the belongings of the people who had fallen into the river.
I will never forget that day as long as I live.
Every time I go to Point Pleasant, I see where the Silver Bridge once sat, and it makes me very sad. I hope and pray that this never happens to any other bridge.
Because it was so close to Christmas, it made it even worse.
It is strange that after 40 years, the memories still linger in my mind so clearly.
Randy Tatum of Savannah, Ga.
I was a young man working in the old Western Union office on 9th Street (between 4th and 5th Avenues) when that Western Union was a full-service public facility.
The Western Union office in Point Pleasant was an “agency” office. They would send telegram messages via teletype machines to the Huntington office for transmission to the final destination. If a message was important, the “agency” could cause bells to ring on the teletype machine to get immediate attention.
On that fateful day of the Silver Bridge collapse, the Point Pleasant teletype machine bell began ringing and ringing and ringing. I went to the machine to see our Point Pleasant agent’s message practically yelling out, “Oh my God, the bridge just fell ... the bridge just fell! Cars in the river ...oh my God!”
I realized I may have been one of the first people in Huntington to learn the news. The panic and fright in that short written message has stayed with me for a lifetime.
Richard McCoy of Huntington
In November 1967, I was flying from Huntington to Pittsburgh. I had a sub-miniature camera, Minolta 16, and took a photo of Point Pleasant through the window.
On Dec. 15, I was returning home and upon arrival in the Pittsburgh airport, I first heard of the bridge collapse in Point Pleasant. On the flight from Pittsburgh to Huntington, it was already dark, but I looked out the window for Point Pleasant. I saw Point Pleasant, but no lights outlining the bridge. That was a sure sign that the bridge was gone.
Gary Tanner of Huntington
In the early fall of 1955, a friend and I hitchhiked up Route 7 from Huntington. We were going to see a girl my friend had met, and she lived in Point Pleasant. We often hitched rides, and we went up the Ohio side because we thought there would be more traffic.
We made it to the Silver Bridge, and our ride let us out because he was going on. So we decided to just walk across the bridge and ask someone there for the location of the street where the girl lived. Walking across the bridge, I still remember how it shook and swayed and was really glad to get off of it.
Twelve years later I was living in California and heard the news of the bridge collapse. Then someone from Huntington sent an article about the tragedy. I moved back to Huntington. A friend I worked with said his dad crossed that bridge every day he worked, and that day his dad was actually waiting to turn the corner and get on the bridge from the Ohio side when it collapsed.
It was quite awhile before his family found out he wasn’t on the bridge at that time.
I’m sure a lot of people had walked across that bridge and felt the same as my friend and I did. It just feels different when you’re more familiar with the bridge and some people that come too close to the tragedy.
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