The Silver Bridge disaster 

I need more content like this. This reminds me so much of old Discovery Channel and History Channel before it became all reality shows.

It’s so nice to see and hear my Uncle Walters voice again. He’s passed on now and was a wealth of historical and natural information he’s much missed.

As a child I remember crossing the Silver Bridge several times to visit relatives in Ohio. My Dad would always say" ok everyone hold your breath and pray in silence that we make it this time". My Dad never did trust the bridge.

Walter Carpenter was my high school Biology teacher. Later, I considered him a good friend. Whenever anyone greeted him and asked how he was doing, his reply was always: "Better Than I Deserve". As a resident of St. Marys for much of my life, I will always remember the original Hi Carpenter Bridge. And the new bridge which replaced the one which was closed, was opened to traffic the same week as I reported for active duty in the US Marine Corps, 1977. Mr. Walter Carpenter was an authority on local history and a good man. He is missed by family and friends.

I was 13 years old when this bridge fell. My parents had to go out of town for a few days and left my younger sister and I with some close friends who lived in the same neighborhood. The man of the house was a truck driver and a good man. He had a delivery that this bridge was on his route. He ask me if I wanted to ride along with him and I was excited to ride in his big truck. The lady called my mother long distance to ask permission, but due to scheduling of my parents' return home, my mom said no. The truck driver would not be back before my parents arrived home. His truck was on the bridge when it fell and he lost his life. I was still at the house when his wife got the phone call and clearly remember her face going stone cold as she dropped the phone and fainted to the floor. That was a seriously troubled time for his family, especially that close to Christmas!!!

Aaah, what a pleasure - to watch a video without any stupid unnecessary background music trying to make it appear cool and modern but really only competing with the speaker. And the speaker in this one is so good as well, so easy to understand. Thank you very much film editor

I am a Mechanical Engineer (BSME, MSME) with 40 years of experience and this is an excellent and interesting documentary! It's very sad to hear of this collapse and condolences to the families losing loved ones. At the same time, it is good that standards were established and implemented for inspection of bridges.

"the silver bridge disaster's has a lasting legacy in Bridge safety" Which is why in 2019, the American Road and Transportation Builders Association found more than 47,000 bridges in the U.S. are in poor condition and in need of urgent repairs, but as of 2020 the US Congress has giving zero dollars to repair any of them....

This is the way to do a documentary: leave the viewer smarter after watching. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

My grandfather was the first person to call the police about the bridge falling. As he lived right beside the bridge and watched it fall. The police didn't believe him until others called in. His name is Roy Sayre.

My grandparents drove over that.bridge two hours before it collapsed. They lived down river from Point Plesant. I was 22.

Here after the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse

This is one of the reasons that certain load-bearing elements of railroad locomotives are never painted. That paint will hide otherwise visible cracks in the metal.

I remember when that happened. Dad was sent down there to help recover those poor souls that died. He was a volunteer fire fighter on Mt. Carmel's North Union Twnph Fire Dept (lifesquadman)

This is a really great documentary. I like the no nonsense approach and the fact it isn't dumbed down but is still presented in a way that you don't have to be a structural engineer to understand what's going on. No propaganda, no bells and whistles, no unnecessary "pop art" graphics, just the story. This is a lost art.

December 15th, 1967 was a Friday. I had been in Charlotte, WV at the DuPont Plant in Nitro and was returning to Athens, Ohio where I was a Professor of Chemical Engineering. I had left the meeting mid-afternoon after I used the company phone to tell my wife I was on my way home. and approached the bridge from the south. I recall that traffic was quite heavy with a combination of semis, dump trucks, pickups and many sedans. Traffic was pretty much stop and go. I think I got to the stop light at the foot of the bridge some a couple of minutes before 5. I turned right at the light and headed toward Athens, arriving home a little after 6. My wife came rushing ou the door. "Did you cross the river?" she asked."Of course I said. "The bridge collapsed an hour ago!" I may have been one of the lucky few who had crossed the bridge just moments before it collapsed.

This, my friends, is a real documentary..... no guesses, suppositions, or ancient aliens...... a forgotten art of fact based storytelling!

I like the no nonsense style. No bombastic music, no replace of information with drama...

This caused my lifelong fear of bridges. Hard thing to overcome when you’re an over the road truck driver.

Great documentary! This is the gold standard for how to make a proper documentary. And thanks for no dramatic music! 👍🏻💕

My grandfather died on the bridge. Thank you for this great documentary.

It is wonderful NOT to have irritating music and hysterical narration !

I was 9 years old when this collapse happened..My Mother cried and my Dad shook his head.. They knew several people that died on that bridge.. I'll never forget that day..

I remember this as a child, as we were traveling from California to Texas to be with our grandparents on Christmas. We heard it on the car radio. What a sad day.

Wow that woman who had the wherewithal to back up on the bridge came so close. I couldn’t imagine seeing a bridge fall out of the sky inches from me and where I had just been. Crazy.

Three years before the collapse of that bridge I drove a truck across it pulling a ten foot wide house trailer. I was alarmed by the noise and shaking. I never crossed it again.

I live about 30 miles from the this bridge. I remember hearing stories from the dive teams that went down to recover bodies and such. Many were getting stuck in the muddy muck on the bottom. One particular diver described seeing a catfish big enough to swallow a grown man just swimming back and forth in front of him. He stayed he poked at it with a hooked pole he was using and it just swam off.

As a 20 something adult I’m beyond glad we live in an age where building technique have had thousands of years of practice, and newer ones have had a few decades. It sucks those people passed but hopefully we learned and do better

LOVED LOVED LOVED this production. the script and all the speaking roles were so novel. it avoided the "slick" quality that so many docs have today. it had a simplicity that modern docs eschew. the amateur, or should i say non professional speakers gave a wonderful feeling of unpretentious reality. the professional narrator spoke with clarity and authority and never upstaged the subject. she was great. very impressive. thank you.

This how you make a documentary! Whoever enjoys this will like The History Guy! Thanks for no stupid music!

That female narrator was brilliant - she sounded cool, authoritative and attractive to listen to. Well done, Open University.

It's amazing how close to being safe this bridge was. The designer was right about the strength of the materials and the design. But because of the combination of water pooling, corrosion, and work hardened members the crack was created. If any of those three things had not been, it would have been fine. This goes to show that using a higher factor of safety may be overkill for the structure overall, but it comes in handy when you get these unlucky combinations of problems that are hard to predict and greatly weaken a single spot.

did anyone catch this event in a movie called, "Moth Man"...? My grandmother lived on the Ohio side, in a house located on the hill facing the bridge at the time it fell. She told me her experience of the bridge falling. She was a house wife at the time, my grand father drove a greyhound bus to Chicago, and back everyday. She told me that she didn't see it break apart, but had a birds eye view of the horrific aftermath. She said she could not hold back tears then, and when she had told me about it in 1975. She had explained to me what is said here, that the people, the area, was so proud to have such a grad size bridge. How important it made them feel to what was happening in the US back then.

My parents crossed the Silver Bridge just 1 day before it collapsed. I remember them saying that the swaying of the bridge just didn’t seem right and it really scared them. My dad stated that he would never cross that bridge again. Well, he was right on that one. I wonder if the ramps are still standing on either sides. I guess I need to make a trip to find out. Great video.

That lady seems so calm and collected talking about it, but I cannot imagine the horror of just getting on that bridge as you start to see the other end of it falling and crashing into the water, and wondering how you are going to back out of there in time!!!

This was so informative, I learned a lot. I always wondered how they built these suspension bridges without pulling one of the main supports down horizontally before they could couple it with the other side.

My Uncle was the head engineer in charge of putting the wreckage back together to find the cause of the bridge failure. I crossed that bridge many times and only a few days before it went down. It never crossed my mind that the bridge was dangerous.

I'm not a naturally mechanically inclined person, but I found this documentary and its explanations and graphics easy to understand and interesting. Thanks for the upload.

As a college student working in sumner for Davy tree, i drove his bridge several times with a truck. Remember it well. I was shocked when it fell. Very interesting film make when we all spoke slower with proper English.

My father crossed the bridge several times the day it fell. As a very young child I cried every time we crossed the bridge because I just felt it was going to fall, it swayed.

The McClean truck at 12:05 was driven by a friend of my fathers. He was about 15 minutes behind him. Dad had to stop and was delayed and was trying to catch back up to his buddy when he drove up on this disaster. If he had not had the minor issue he had there would have been 2 McClean trucks in that mess!

I drove my mama across that bridge one day and remarked, "Mom, some day this old bridge will fall" as we experienced a trembling and scary swinging of it from side to side as we crossed. Mama replied, "No. They built this bridge too well." I crossed that bridge hundreds of times and was terrified each time. There was a traffic light on the WV side which caused the bridge to be loaded with cars and trucks for extended periods. I remember seeing the newspaper accounts after the fall with pictures of Christmas packages floating in the water. How haunting and sad that was.

I'm always impressed how professional Investigators in tragedies like this can sift thro the twisted chaos and physical aftermath and can quite literally pinpoint the cause(s). Lockerbie and the King's Cross Underground also spring to mind as examples of dogged forensics.

What an absolute joy to see a documentary of such high calibre! Facts, expert analysis and participants recalling their personal experiences of the actual incident all make this a delight to watch. The viewer learns rather than be entertained by the unfolding examination of relevant information.

So happy they didn't use music.

I was 11yrs old in July 1967. I rode across the bridge twice the same day. I still remember the way it shook. When I heard about it falling later that year I got a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I watched a movie years ago titled the Mothman Prophecies with Richard Gere as the star actor. This bridge and Point Pleasant was the subject of that movie.

My grandfather worked for the DOTD of Louisiana as a bridge inspector for 30 years. No bridge he ever inspected fell, though some did have issues. It’s a critical job that most treat as an inconvenience.

I remember when I was a lot younger my grandfather talking about the Silver Bridge. He hauled cars a crossed it 100+ times from Michigan to Charleston And I remember him talking about him crossing the bridge the day before it collapsed. He said he heard a very loud pop and the bridge shook in a way it never did before.

The American Bridge Company built the Hercilio Luz Bridge in Florianópolis, Brazil in 1926. It has a similar design of the Silver Bridge and was reopened last year after it was revitalized. I monitored some part of the progress as Civil Engineering student and it was fantastic.

My father, a deputy Assessor now long deceased, from Wheeling had attended a Conference in Huntington by bus and crossed the Silver Bridge on the way home the day before the collapse!

What's sad is that now in 2021, our bridges and infrastructure are in such bad shape we're at risk of many more collapsing

I remember reading an analysis of the Silver Bridge collapse shortly after it happened and a significant factor was mentioned that was not included in this documentary. This was the use of "rocker towers". When a suspension bridge is at rest all of the tension and compression forces are in equilibrium. When acted upon by outside forces (wind, deck load, etc.) this equilibrium is disturbed and various parts of the bridge move until a new equilibrium is established. This documentary made a point about how much movement there was in the bridge and this was an intended part of the design. In order for there to be movement without excessive stress in the bridge components there has to be a mechanism to allow for this moment. Some suspension bridges have rigid towers and the cables or chains can move a bit lengthwise through the top of the tower as required. The Silver bridge was different. The chains were attached in a fixed position at the top of the towers and the bottoms of the towers were on "rockers" so that they could tilt along the the length of the bridge to redistribute the stresses. This worked OK under normal conditions, but when eyebar 330 failed there was a very large asymmetrical force on the tower and, being pretty much unrestrained at the bottom, it simply fell over and collapse of the entire bridge ensued. If the towers had been rigidly attached to the piers (and other means of redistributing stresses used) it is possible that the collapse would have only been partial rather than complete - and probably many fewer people would have died.

I remember driving from Columbus, Ohio to Huntington AV a week or so after the Silver Bridge fell, and finding a tow or three mile backup at the Huntington Bridge, about forty miles from the Silver Bridge. Turned out everyone was waiting until the car ahead had gotten more than halfway over before accelerating so that there were only two or three cars on the bridge at a time. we were terrified.

Excellent narration, great presentation. Thank you. The suspension towers of the Silver Bridge seem remarkably fragile compared to the lengths of the spans they're supporting.

Talk about an eyewitness, could you imagine seeing the bridge fall apart before your eyes knowing that a few feet separated her snd the catastrophe

always find it amazing how, in any engineering disaster, the experts reconstruct as much as possible to find the fault. Very similar to plane crashes, no matter how large or small the component, every piece is used to tell the tale of disaster.

I remember one man said it hit home to him when he realized the girl who normally sat next to him in class wasn't there. She and her mother had died in the Silver Bridge disaster.

It's like looking out of the window on a jet liner, if the wing didn't flex like it did, the wing would snap or like the Sears/Willis Tower on Wacker in Chicago, if the building didn't sway like it does it would snap as well. It's built to flex and sway to relieve the pressure

I remember this. I was a 10 y/o kid living in West Virginia when the news bulletin interrupted whatever we were watching. It was surreal to watch especially knowing most people who were on the bridge were out Christmas shopping.

I remember watching this tragedy on the Today Show, they showed them bringing up cars that were crushed and twisted and I will never forget seeing a hand with fingers splayed out sticking out of one the twisted crushed cars. That image haunted me for years. I’ve never forgotten it.

My friend drove semis. His employer insisted he drive over this bridge with loads 28000 pounds heavier than permitted. The bridge sagged and swayed. He finally refused a to cross that bridge overweight, and was fired. A couple weeks later.....

The collapse happed close to Christmas, and the loss of 40+ lives caused Christmas 1967 to be cancelled in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. John Keel wrote a book called “The Mothman Prophecies” which was made into a Richard Gere movie of the same title. The Silver Bridge collapse was included.

This is what happens when you make a suspension structure too rigid. The eyebar system enforced a side to side rigidity that concentrated stresses. The failure could have just as easily come from the small bolts that held the eyebar pin endcaps on. There were multiple design flaws in such a system, and why cable bridges are generally superior.

I crossed that bridge so many times from 1961 to 1966 that it's impossible to remember how many. I was in Vietnam when it collapsed and I could hardly believe it.

My grandmother went over this bridge 30 minutes before it collapsed. She had a hair appt her friend took her to and sadly her friend was coming back over the bridge when it collapsed.

I live 30 miles from Pt Pleasant, and it still amazes me every time it comes up, someone was waiting to go over it, or knew someone that just went over it, or had a friend that had a friend that was near it....

Extraordinarily clear and useful, an incomparable teaching device. Thank you

The older sister of this bridge, and one of these three already built in the world, (Hercílio Luz) in Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil, which is still standing, was recently restored. Cars went back on December 30, 2019, after 28 years banned due to cracking in one of the four eyebars support. Hercilio Luz may not have collapsed because it had four supporting eyebars, unlike Silver Brigde which had only two.

This is terrific. The narrator is outstanding.

What a great team! From the fella that was there back when the bridge opened to the contemporary engineer of today with the head of the museum to tie the report together and, of course, not forgetting our brave survivor lady (I liked her) to the narrator who was clear and concise. I think those "sister bridges" are outstanding and I'm very interested to see them today. Thank you very much for a fine show. \m/

Great video. Especially appreciated Jack Fowler's commentary. Very clear, informed, and honest. E.g., describing how the sister bridge didn't need to be shut down, given the difference in usage, but emotions were so high after the silver bridge disaster it was hopeless trying to convince them.

My mother crossed the Silver Bridge just 15 minutes before it fell. She was in the five and dime store in Gallipolis when it fell.

Man.. when I first saw the design of this bridge I thought, this is a terrible design.. But after learning more about the bridge, I started to think that this was a terrific design, just had a couple fatal flaws that went unnoticed.. It really makes you have immense respect for the designs that do work and do last.

Great description of how a suspension bridge was supposed to work. This was a great documentary.

Thank you. I grew up just up river from the Silver Bridge and recall its failure when it happened. This topic is certainly timely given the raging debate about infrastructure in this country. It’s time to recall the lessons tragically learned from this piece of history. I pray that our leaders & law makers revisit this incident during their debates and do what’s right for us all.

The narrator, Francesca Hunt, is brilliant. *I wish she could narrate EVERYTHING!*

This small documentary was extremely well done. Thank you.

I was 17 years old when the bridge fell. I was attending the old Barboursville High School as a senior. This happening just before the Christmas season left a saddened populace. This was the first really big event that made me realize that anything could and would happen with no regard for the people involved. I grew up when this happened and felt less than safe as a person on earth. This event, the assassination of John Kennedy, and the Marshall plane crash that destroyed the Marshall football team, cheerleaders, and loyal fans certainly made me realize that no one is ever safe, and fate, or whatever you want to call the randomization of events, was ever present and leering at all of us.

Living in Pittsburgh, I've walked over the bridges before and they honestly feel more stable than most other bridges I've been on. Didn't realize they were so old but they'll definitely be able to last for a while longer

I was surprised at how thin I bars that were supporting the tremendous load on the silver bridge. Even my basic common sense would have questioned the wisdom of an entire bridge relying on that thin piece of steel. The lady that backed up was one quick thinking lucky lady.

There is a big difference between lack of maintenance as is the current problem than with metallurgy in the late 19th and early 20th century. Metallurgy in the early 20th century was still a tough field and there was much that wasn't known about how steel acted. Remember during WWII the Liberty ships would in extreme cold crack in half and they were retrofitted to resolve the problem. There are dozens of examples of this learning curve relative to steel manufacturing and its properties.

People back then spoke eloquently unlike these modern times. Amazing articulation

I’ve always been fascinated by the video of the bridge waving around. I remember as a kid not being able to understand how that could happen.

I live about 43 river miles below Pittsburgh, at Chester, WV. The collapse of Silver Bridge led to inspections which discovered severe corrosion in the main cables of the old suspension bridge that carried US 30 over the river here. It was among the first to be condemned as a result of the Silver Bridge tragedy and resulting inspections. Our bridge, built in 1896, used wire cables instead of the eyebar chains described here.

Just superb. I was in grade school in West Virginia when the Silver Bridge fell and subsequently became an engineer, but I never informed myself about the final causality. Well done.

Great documentary - what a pity it was let down by whoever wrote the subtitles. The errors begin within the first minute and a half: 1:17 the narrator said, "identical in design was constructed at St Mary's," while the writer wrote "identical in design was constructed at some merits." At 1:36 he wrote "st. Mary's" but didn't go back and correct the mistake just 19 seconds earlier. 1.38 wrote "called a bridge crossing herever st. Mary's" instead of "called a bridge crossing the river at St. Mary's." 2:27 wrote "high carpenter and silver bridges" instead of "Hi Carpenter and Silver bridges" the correct name Hi Carpenter that they wrote less than 2 minutes earlier and was even written on a sign at the bridge. There were several other small mistakes, but I can't go past these more major mistakes: 8.52 instead of "can lead to stress corrosion cracking" clearly stated by the narrator, the subtitle reads "can lead to stress Rosen cracking." 16:50 instead of "I did know what was happening," the subtitles says the opposite, "I didn't know what was happening." 19.57 the man says "like little chicks following a mother hen" while the writer instead wrote, "like little chicks following a mother hand" The phrase "like little chicks following a mother hen" is common - how did they not know that? I couldn't be bothered writing them all down. Why weren't the subtitles of this great little documentary checked? It's pretty obvious that the writer just tossed in words that "sounded" like what was spoken, rather than double checking it and at times didn't seem to know how to spell. How many subtitle mistakes did you find?

Roberto Clemente Bridge is an architectural marvel. It's iconic view from the right field grandstands of PNC Park is what makes it a permanent landmark. Also, the reason they call us the city of bridges isn't because of the amount of bridges in the region, but because of how we construct them.

I could not imagine being that woman watching the bridge collapse before me. I think that would be the last bridge I would try to cross

Why no lube in the joints? No bushings? No accounting for water freezing and thawing in the joints? Clearly the job went to the lowest bidder, highest kickbacks. It did though last 39 of it's expected 40 year life. Glad we have learned from our mistakes. Thanks for this doc.

It’s interesting that the production date on this is 2007. I’m going to assume that this documentary was finished before August 1, 2007, the day that the I-35W bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. It’s original build was done in 1967, I believe. Subsequent inspections of bridges all over the US found that a frightening majority of them had a grade/rating of C or D (A being the best). At least one bridge crossing the Mississippi in Minnesota about an hour northwest of Minneapolis was immediately closed since it was the same age and similar design. This meant the people living in that college city on the east/north side of it had to drive over an hour in either direction to gain access to interstate 94 until it could be very thoroughly inspected and any necessary repair could be immediately undertaken. Yes, there was much complaining by people. But when some similar problems were found that had been the cause of the Minneapolis bridge collapse, they promptly shut up.

My dad was a fire fighter on the South Charleston fire dept. in the 60's. He and two other off-duty fire fighters took the dept. boat up there the next day to help search for bodies. Always been fascinated with the bridge.

This is my hometown. Excellent review here. I did my a report on this in my engineering senior paper many years ago, and micro fish and newspaper searches were all I had . The only thing I will add is that the Christmas shopping was heading to Gallipolis Ohio side and had the bridge loaded on one side significantly more than the other side (coming in to point pleasant, WV) and that contributed to exposing the flaw on the suspension pin. I absolutely love the information here, well done, Thank you!

6:14, just like houses built today, they’re built to code, not built to last like old houses.

Living on the Ohio River I have seen several similar bridges between Pittsburgh and Louisville and most were built within a few yrs of each other in the 1920s. The one in Madison Indiana was very similar to the one at Point Pleasant . It was replaced about 8 yrs ago I believe

Thank you for posting this, it's a pleasure to watch such a well made video. Deepest sympathies to the family and friends of the victims.

Amazing how many people showed up to open a bridge. Simpler times!

I have looked at that spot hundreds of times in my life and thought about it extensively since I lived in the area. Also, my grandfather was one of the divers who tried to retrieve the bodies from the Ohio river. Bad deal.

15:10 Alloy steel has essentially the same elastic modulus (a measure of material stiffness) regardless of whether it's mild steel or high strength steel. The Silver Bridge used less steel because the steel was stronger, however this had the side effect of more deflection under load than a similar bridge built with more massive components. Hence the increased motion of the bridge felt by motorists compared to other suspension bridges.

This video about the intrecacies of bridge construction was fascinating. Interesting that the bridge with the latest high strength steel was that one to fail, while the one employing mild steel survived.