Current Event #2
Stephanie Westing
Current Event
“Truck Hit Caused Washington State Bridge Collapse, Police Say”
The Washington bridge carries 77,000 cars a day, was built in 1955. It collapsed on Thursday around 7 pm. Amazingly no one died. Dan Sligh, a Navy vet, saw it coming: a trailer (18-wheeler) in oversized load. He slammed on the brakes, but the truck and the trailer pulled him and his wife off of the bridge into the water feets below. He said, “You hold on as tight as you can” then he saw a “white flash and cold water”. On the impact he dislocated his shoulder but as a vet he popped it back in pulled his wife to safety. Another driver also fell into the water, he didn’t die either. Sligh said that he was “glad to be here breathing”. The collapse of the bridge was the result of the truck and the trailer’s cargo, also the bridge. The load of the truck hit a support grinder and causing it to collapse. The bridge was inspected in November, but it’s not clear if the condition of the bridge played a role in the collapse. They say that if the bridge’s condition was bad then no one would be riding on it.
I think that they should think it inspected again to and figure out what really happened. I am glad that no one died in this.
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Pearson, Michael: Brumfield, Ben: Barrett, Katharine: Carpenter, Jake: Alsup, Dave:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/24/us/washington-bridge-collapse/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (16)16 Responses to “Current Event #2”
Wow That doesn’t seem good what is their plan for rebuilding it
To rebuild it, it didn’t say much about the rebuilding process.
So only one support got broken and the entire thing went down? (not a very good bridge)
It was an old bridge, built in 1955
Woah, that would be really scary to just be driving along and the bridge collapses under you, if that doesn’t cause a phobia I don’t know what will!
i wonder why the bridge collapsed when it should have been built to stand up to the impact
It said something like the load that the truck was carrying was too big.
is there a reason why the bridge fell down? was it because it was just really old or what?
That and that the truck/trailer hit it and went down.
Do they know how long repairs will take on this bridge?
No, it happened in the past week so they don’t know how long it will take yet.
How big was this bridge?
I don’t really know, it didn’t say.
Great article! What happened to the people’s cars that fell when the bridge collapsed? Are they gonna try to rescue them?
I wonder if there was there a weight limit on the bridge that the truck was too heavy for??
Thanks! I don’t know, I would think that they might have sunk just because the people were thinking about saving themselves and their loved ones and not thinking about the car.
I don’t know about any limit.
that must have been a fat truck with a fat driver to collapse the thing