Worst bridge you’ve crossed?

Backing mixers out on to the partial built bridge in front of Hoover Dam bad me change undies...... watching the guy guiding you back toward what looked like the edge of the world, could get out nothing to stand on at least in my opinion. Would not do it again.

 

Vincent Thomas Bridge between the Port of LA/Long Beach and San Pedro in the rain during rush hour. Steel deck, 4 wheeler's, and crazy port drivers don't mix well.

 

Those are the most "fun" in high winds, when the waves on Lake Washington start coming over the solid concrete rails and flooding the road. Windshields have caved in from the impact with a wave. If they close those bridges don't try to be a hero, go around.

 

I hate crossing the bridge over the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge. It's always a lot of traffic and I feel it shake.....very unnerving

 

I did not know what I was getting into back then, first trip into Washington State. You know those old ltl loads, just trying to get it empty by morning. Now, I'd laugh tell them weather delay and go to bed,

 

All bridges shake, get out and stand on one while a truck goes by, the taller and longer the more shake and sway they have.

I delivered a load of beams to a bridge they were building in lowsians, the aproach was pretty steep and not paved yet. When I ask where thye wanted them, they told me it didn't mattr because I wouldn't go there anyway. I ask why not and they said, no one else had, we will have to move the crane down here and unload you.lol
I told them, lets just give it a try first, I don't want to wait till you get the crane moved, it worked out good enough to back up there where they needed them.

 

ain't nothing to that big old bad boy that just a classic suspension bridge... it's structurally sound it ain't going to fall or anyting..
style of those 1960s bridges are made to flex and bow..

 

That bridge does scare some people. They keep a remuda of drivers ready to take people across.

We crossed that as a kid on the bus the single span with the new one built along side. Many years later I was to be having my mack and container shoved against the railing and tipped over but not completely over. Took a few moments on the fuel tank waiting for her to come back down or go on over. (232 feet fall, not survivable) Obviously she came back down.

One bridge on the old 70 alignment that was closed after the wreck in 1983 at what is called Jug Bridge. A older span bridge that moved alot on the downgrade westbound. It is almost a mile downriver from the new I-70 alignment with it's new concerte span that you all roll out and climb upgrade eastbound which is the replacement.

One day in 83 a bus carrying a group of senior citizens in the rain came down that downgrade towards the bridge. The apsalt was ribbions already from big rigs braking prior to hitting the bridge itself over decades. Anyhow the suspension on the bus was over active tires got jittery and when it hit the decking which began to really be active there was no traction. So it slides to the left rail tips over on that throwing people over the right hand rail as it slams against it. Some fell to their deaths in the river bed below. And ended up stopped about halfway down the downgrade westbound span before it reaches the other side.

This is a relatively good site but includes the older pre '44 and the newer '55 that had the bus wreck and abandoned.

Landmarks: The Jug and the Bridge

I did not get to use the old 70 alignment in trucking because the State snipped about 4 miles off it and built the new workaround towards the 1987 time period. We did explore it heavily on hikes from the state school in Frederick on some days and are very familiar with it. The newer eastbound span next to the old Jug would shake as each of the loaded trucks tests the 20 foot plates the loads get transferred to each sets of beams and eventually the whole span dances. Its noisy when several come through. They closed that one off as well.

In the years before the wreck and closure in a vehicle you had to sort of have the speed just so and aim it to fall down through and across the old Jug most of the time if you had good tires in the rain and did not get wild with it it's all good. I forget how many died on that particular bridge. A dozen or more I believe. I'll have to do some research into it.

They kept the newer span but made it two lane after they demo'ed the old Jug which were where the utitliy wires crossed the river over the railing. It's seriously overgrown now.

Google Maps

Edited.

Sometimes a little look see into writeups of things that happened helps to clear up the losses in memory.

Here is about a two paragraph write up of the bus wreck that hurt or killed up to a dozen. It is not a complete write up that deals with the engineering problems that bus faced coming down. That lies elsewhere.

Frederick Memorial Hosptial is NW of the city core and is a very good one, I estimate it at a Class Two which means it's capable of very many things. However Baltimore has the Crowley Trauma Center which is essentially the first of it's kind and had everything possible on site such as a hyperbaric chamber for example. If the Maryland helicopters for which their drivers pay for in tag fees get you there in a hour or less you have a fighting chance.

Frederick, MD Bus Accident On Jug Bridge, Aug 1985 | GenDisasters ... Genealogy in Tragedy, Disasters, Fires, Floods