Posted on 12/14/2017 6:20:37 AM PST by buckalfa
POINT PLEASANT, W.Va. Point Pleasant Mayor Brian Billings was 10 years old when the Silver Bridge collapsed on Dec. 15, 1967. He will be on hand Friday at a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the tragedy.
Billings tells MetroNews his message will be clear.
We cant let this ever go by without remembering, whether its 10, 25, 50 years from today, what took place in our city and what was enacted to work towards preventing things like this from happening across our country, he said.
Forty-six people died when the bridge between Point Pleasant and Gallipolis, Ohio fell into the Ohio River. An investigation found the cause was the failure of an eyebar in the suspension chain. Investigators also said the bridge had been poorly maintained and carrying heavier loads than it should have.
When that bridge fell, it changed the path for Point Pleasant, Billings said. Not only did we lose people from our own community who were special and dear to all, but we lost an economic way because the bridge was then moved south from where it fell to the adjacent community of Henderson.
Billings said if there was something good to come out of the collapse, it was the increased federal oversight over infrastructure.
Had the federal government not get involved and say, Look, weve got to change our course on how were handling and looking at these structures, there could have been more tragedies, he said.
Federal and state officials will speak about the impact of the bridge collapse during the ceremony. Acting Federal Highway Administration administrator Brandye Hendrickson will speak about how the tragedy resulted in a new era of infrastructure safety. The ceremony will be held at 200 6th St. starting at 11 a.m.
How did that Federal Policy change prevent this? :
Perhaps the reason the bridge collapsed is that the engineers who designed it were taught by this ignorant s***: “Purdue Professor Argues Tough College Courses Reinforce White Privilege.”
Math is hard, for SJW dorks and dorkesses at least.
Remember Mothman!
yes I do That movie creeped me out!!!
I guess the point here is that things weren’t the least bit pleasant 50 years ago at Point Pleasant.
I knew of this from a book called “The Mothman Prophecies” by John Keel, which I read when it came out in 1975. It was made into a movie about fifteen years ago, which probably no one saw.
Well, apparently a few people saw it.
In the 50 years prior to and including this event, there were 8 road bridge collapses in the U.S. In the 50 years since, there have been about 35. Thank you Big Brother Fed for making our roads so much safer. < /sarc>
I know it's not a fair comparison due to the increases in traffic, bridges, and reporting of these types of events, but I hate seeing the government make unsubstantiated claims of massive improvements resulting from their actions.
Reports are circulating that Mothman will be making a surprise visit for the 50th anniversary...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Bridge
Per the Wiki article, the bridge did not have an redundancy built in for failure.
When a single eyebar failed, the entire bridge went down.
It was on TV, millions saw it.
I thought it was an interesting movie, especially if you give any credence at all to any of the alleged sightings. My final decision is out on that, but it still was interesting.
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