The Silver Bridge Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Point Pleasant’s Silver Bridge Disaster In 1967 Improved Bridge Safety

The Silver Bridge collapse, on the Ohio River at Point Pleasant, killed 46 people. After it, the Federal Highway Administration began using National Bridge Inspection Standards.

The collapse of a highway bridge in Baltimore Harbor may remind some West Virginians of a tragedy that changed how bridges nationwide are inspected.

Before the Silver Bridge failed on the evening of Dec. 15, 1967, there was no national standard for bridge inspection.

The Silver Bridge collapse, on the Ohio River at Point Pleasant, killed 46 people. In 1971, the Federal Highway Administration began using National Bridge Inspection Standards.

They required the inspection of bridges and their components at least once every two years, with emphasis on fractures, corrosion and fatigue – all of which played a part in the Silver Bridge’s failure.

Stan Bumgardner, a state historian and editor of the West Virginia Encyclopedia, says technology today could have spotted the hidden flaw in the Silver Bridge. It couldn’t then.

“Now, today, they have, you know, techniques where you can get cameras, and you can see places where you couldn’t have seen in 1967. But in 1967 nobody really ever faulted the bridge inspectors for missing anything, just because it wasn’t part of the routine to check for that. And it would have been virtually impossible, they would have had to have been looking for. a needle in a haystack and knowing where the needle was, and still trying to find it.”

Bumgardner says he’s spoken to people in the community who not only remember that day, but remember the people who were killed. Some were classmates or members of the same church. Some were neighbors. One man lost both his parents.

He says the memory is so strong, decades later, that incidents like the one in Baltimore remind people of it.

“I’m sure for people in Point Pleasant who remember, December the 15th 1967, that anytime there’s any of these bridge incidents, collapses, problems with where they have to shut down bridges, even where they’re even no deaths involved. I’m sure it takes all those people in Point Pleasant back to 1967. And they remember exactly where they were and how they felt right then.”

As with the Silver Bridge then, the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the Baltimore collapse now. It could take the agency as long as two years to produce a report.

And from there, changes will be made to improve bridge safety from the lessons learned.

On-The-Scene Memories Stay With Photographer 55 Years After The Silver Bridge Disaster

On Dec.15, 1967, the Silver Bridge that connected Point Pleasant, W.Va. and Gallipolis, Ohio, collapsed under the weight of afternoon rush-hour traffic. Forty-six people died.

On Dec. 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge that connected Point Pleasant, West Virginia and Gallipolis, Ohio, collapsed under the weight of afternoon rush-hour traffic. Forty-six people died.

Now 79 and retired, former WSAZ-TV cameraman Earl Ward was one of the first journalists to reach the Ohio River disaster site. His memories begin with his arrival shortly after the collapse.

“I came up on the West Virginia side and I mean the whole bridge was in the water,” Ward said. “If I remember right, there were 45 cars or so involved. They were just working hard, trying to get to any people that were in the cars –to get them out.”

These were the days of television news, before satellite live shots and cell phones capturing on-the-scene reports. Ward remembered his role in covering the disaster that first, cold December night. There would be many more stories.

“I went up there with a guy from Logan that worked for us by the name of Jim Mitchell,” Ward said. “We filmed the scene and then he went back to do the 11 o’clock news and took what video we had shot up to that point back. I stayed there until, I guess it was twelve or one o’clock at night.”

Two of the victims were never found. Investigation of the wreckage pointed to the cause of the collapse being the failure of a single I-beam in a suspension chain. Analysis showed that the bridge was carrying much heavier loads than it had been designed for and had been poorly maintained.

Young videographer Ward from Raleigh County would become Chief Photographer for WSAZ-TV. Ward was on the scene of West Virginia disasters like the Buffalo Creek Flood and the aftermath of the Marshall Plane Crash.

Earl and WVPB Government Reporter Randy Yohe covered stories together for decades as a WSAZ-TV reporter and photographer team. Five years ago, on the Silver Bridge Disaster 50th Anniversary, Yohe and his wife Vickie took Earl to the Point Pleasant remembrance ceremony.

“It just brought back memories,” Ward said. “I recalled seeing the people – regular citizens – on both sides of the river, working to help first responders as much as they could, but a number of people still lost their lives. It was a major disaster.”

The tragedy inspired state and national legislation to ensure that older bridges were regularly inspected and maintained. The collapsed bridge was replaced by the Silver Memorial Bridge, which was completed in 1969.

West Virginia is also marking this 55th anniversary. Go to WVDOT for more on the Silver Bridge Disaster.

The Silver Bridge Collapses Killing 46: December 15, 1967

December 15, 1967, was one of the darkest days in West Virginia history. Sadly, it was only the first of many tragic days that West Virginians would suffer.

The Silver Bridge, which connected Point Pleasant with Gallipolis, Ohio, had opened to traffic in 1928. It was the first bridge in the nation to use an innovative eyebar-link suspension system rather than a traditional wire-cable suspension.

But one of those eyebars had a small, unseen defect. The faulty eyebar eventually cracked and began to corrode, out of sight from the public or bridge inspectors. At about 5 p.m. on December 15, the eyebar failed, setting off a series of other failures that caused the bridge to collapse.

It was rush hour, and the bridge was packed with cars. Thirty-one vehicles plunged into the icy waters of the Ohio River. Twenty-one people survived, but 46 died in the disaster.

The Silver Bridge tragedy led to national changes in how bridges were inspected. At St. Marys—some 100 miles upstream from Point Pleasant—another 40-year-old bridge of the same design was immediately closed and later demolished.

West Virginia Bridge Collapse Prompted Inspection Mandate

Truck driver Bill Needham braced for death at the bottom of the Ohio River after a bridge collapse 50 years ago in West Virginia sent his rig and dozens of other vehicles into the frigid waters.

A crucial joint in the 39-year-old Silver Bridge’s eyebar suspension system snapped from years of corrosion and neglect, and the normal vibrations of heavy rush-hour traffic on U.S. Route 35 shook it apart on Dec. 15, 1967. Cars and trucks that had been stuck in traffic on the bridge due to a malfunctioning traffic light tumbled into the river at Point Pleasant, and 46 people perished.

Needham thought he’d be among them.

“I expected to be killed. I really did,” Needham said in a recent telephone interview from his home in Asheboro, North Carolina.

Desperate and determined, Needham tugged a window down far enough to slide out as the truck sank to the bottom of the river. Then 27, Needham made his way to the river’s surface and found a floating box to grab onto.

Rescuers in tugboats pulled him out of the water. He was hospitalized with a broken back. Needham’s truck driving partner, asleep in the cab’s rear, didn’t make it out.

U.S. Sen. Jennings Randolph, chairman of the Senate Public Works Committee, immediately launched hearings into the collapse of the bridge, which hadn’t been thoroughly inspected in 16 years, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

In this Dec. 15, 1967 photo, rescuers take a body to a temporary morgue in Point Pleasant, W.Va., after it was recovered from wreckage taken from the Ohio River where the Silver Bridge collapsed.

The hearings led to the first federal requirements mandating bridge inspections at least every two years. Since 1988, federal standards have required submerged elements of all bridges with substructures in water must be inspected at regular intervals not exceeding five years. Guidance issued last May allows for underwater inspections every six years on lower-risk bridges when adhering to Federal Highway Administration-approved criteria.

“The Silver Bridge collapse was a national wake-up call and inspired a much more aggressive effort to inspect and maintain bridges across the country,” acting Federal Highway Administrator Brandye L. Hendrickson said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press. “In fact, this tragedy propelled the nation into a new era” of bridge safety. Federal data shows that while nearly one-fourth of the nation’s 611,000 bridges were either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete in 2015, that’s a drop from more than 30 percent in 2000. Most structurally deficient bridges are in rural areas.

President Donald Trump has said he’s working to streamline the permit process to get major infrastructure projects like roadways and bridges finished faster. A $1 trillion overhaul of the nation’s roads and bridges is a key item on his domestic agenda — but one that’s gained little traction.

Interstate highway construction accelerated during the 1950s and early 1960s. Now, bridges along major highways “are coming to the point where they’re going to need significant rehabilitation, or in some cases, replacement,” said Rocky Moretti, director of policy and research for Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit transportation research group TRIP.

Federal data shows there are about 73,000 bridges nationwide at least 75 years old, including 12,241 past the century mark. According to the U.S. General Accounting Office, bridges are typically constructed with a design life of 50 years, and those built from 1957 to 1976 show the greatest need for maintenance, reconditioning or replacement.

In about a dozen states, including West Virginia, 30 percent or more of their bridges are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. In October, state voters passed a $1.6 billion bond referendum for road and bridge repairs and construction.

Needham returned to work in 1968 and continued his North Carolina-to-Ohio route for the next eight years, carrying him over the Silver Memorial Bridge, built in 1969 a few hundred yards downstream from the old bridge.

The new bridge “was built as strong as the Rock of Gibraltar,” Needham said.

Officials plan to mark Friday’s anniversary of the Silver Bridge collapse with a ceremony. Needham said he once had a closet full of newspapers with stories about the collapse. But no longer.

“I just threw them all away,” he said. “I wanted to wipe myself away from it.”

Remembrance of the Silver Bridge Collapse Planned

The Silver Bridge in Point Pleasant West Virginia collapsed 50 years ago this week, sending 46 people to their death in the Ohio River. There will be a ceremony to remember them later this week.

Investigations 50 years ago indicated that the bridge was poorly maintained and regularly supporting more weight than it was designed to hold. The Acting Federal Highway Administrator Brandye L. Hendrickson will join state and local officials on the anniversary of the 1967 collapse.

They’ll gather to remember those lost when the Silver Bridge snapped while loaded with holiday travelers. Two of the 46 victims were never found. The incident brought national attention to bridge safety concerns, leading to the National Bridge Inspection Program.

The federal program now calls for mandatory inspections every two years of the nation’s more than 600,000 bridges.

Remarks will be delivered in downtown (6^th and Main St.) Point Pleasant – 200 6^th Street, Point Pleasant on Friday, December 15, at 11 a.m.