Posted on 04/12/2012 9:20:24 PM PDT by POWERSBOOTHEFAN
I was going on four in 1980 and I don't remember hearing about this on the news. I was curious if anyone here remembers it or was actually stuck in traffic after the collapse.
I watched a video about it on YouTube.
I was living and working on Anna Maria key back then
Quaint
skyway jacks
Cortez....overrun with square groupers...lol
Yep....,that was a wild time
Took my family down last summer to relive it and st pete beach from passa grille to Clearwater was over developed ...even The Don was different
All so tacky and crowded with midwesterners
We spent one night at the Don annex...a joke...and cancelled
Went to Sanibel and rented a little 50s style pastel cottage and had a great time
My wife took a xanax bar to get over the bridge
Of course i had to make it worse slowing down and clowning
Saw a good friend that trip too in NoFla....
Man....how crowded 75 is nowadays
When i was a boy you took US hwys 19 27 41 or 31 into Coppertone nation 98 90
I rode across it on a Trailways bus a week before that happened.
We used to drive to Ft. Myers to visit family at least once a year. My mother had a Pontiac station wagon, and I loved to sit in the very back and to bury myself under the back seat, folding it down on top of me like it was a coffin. Heh. Anywho, I remember the first time we drove over that bridge after the accident. My mother, who was very big on driving all the way from Jackson to Ft. Myers without stopping to sleep, made it to that bridge and made my teenaged brother drive over it. She rarely to never allowed anyone else to drive her. But she did this one time. I buried myself in the back and prayed. It was the middle of the night and foggy just as I imagined it to be when the accident occurred.
We drove over the remaining bridge other times, and I have been afraid of bridges ever since. When my mother and I made the long drive to Ft. Myers in later years, we would take 75 in order to avoid the bridge and the zillion stoplights between st. Pete and Ft. Myers. I will never forget the drop off at the top of that bridge. I will have nightmares now after reading and responding to this thread. I did drive over that bridge alone one time when I was on Christmas vacation from Bama one year. It was very late, and I prayed the whole way over. Lol. Obviously, I made it.
Hubby makes fun of me for my bridge phobia. We went to Mackinaw several times, and that bridge is no fun when the wind is 35 to 54 mph gusting. We had to drive over at 10 or 15 mph. /shiver
We were in a Lamaze class in Tallahassee, in 1979 with a young couple also expecting their first baby. Both of us had boys in October, and the following year, the young mother was going to take the bus to visit her family and let them meet the newest member. Sadly, she and the baby were on the bus that went off the bridge. The father moved out of the Student Housing apartments, and we never saw him again. It was so very sad.
I also remember that morning well.
I lived in north Tampa and was getting ready to go to my office in downtown Tampa. It was raining cats and dogs. In fact, the storm was so bad that morning that I wasn’t surprised when I heard that something bad had happened. It was a big storm that covered the entire Tampa Bay area.
I had gone over that bridge many times to get to Longboat Key. It was a creepy bridge - very high.
I even sailed under the bridge twice in a Hobie Cat race to and from Longboat Key. We put in on the beach on the north side of the beginning of the bridge.
The thought of unknowingly driving off that bridge into the abyss gives me the willies even today.
I left Tampa in ‘69. I remember riding over it, scary especially on a bike.
I left Tampa in ‘69. I remember riding over it, scary especially on a bike.
I left Tampa in ‘69. I remember riding over it, scary especially on a bike.
I left Tampa in ‘69. I remember riding over it, scary especially on a bike.
Sorry stupid mobile
When we approached the bridge, she dropped to the floor in the back seat with a sweater over her head. She didn't emerge till we were back at ground level again. She had Sunshine Skyway Bridge Phobia.
The peculiar thing was that she flew all over the country in the course of her business, but airplane height didn't appear to bother her.
Leni
amazing account,
http://www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/bridges/skyway.htm
I had a large Allstate Insurance Agency in Naples for many years and drove over the bridge many times. Our Regional office was in South St Pete and I attended meetings there often. Prior to goimg to Naples I lived in Clearwater and we use to fish off the cat walks along the roadway on the approaches to the actual bridge ( we fished at night). We would walk as far out as we could and fish. they had barriers up so you could not go up on the bridge. There was some wild and different creatures that would swim in the channel under that bridge. It was a wild night because the traffic was right next to you all night long. I remember the accident well and used the bridge after they turned the one way into two way to get traffic flowing. You drove righy by the damage and while the repairs were going on.
I used to drive a big box truck (used Ryder) for my father’s business and crossed those spans at least 6 times per year. After the accident, the remaining span was made into a two lane and as I would drive by the damaged bridge I would take pictures where the road ended. Surreal.
A year and a half ago, I rode a Ninja sport bike from Florida to visit family in Kentucky and my sister works near Lake Barkley. I rode my bike over the bridges to the Land Between the Lakes and on the way back, I had my family video me riding over the bridge. That was the scariest bridge I’ve ever been on. That is the bridge knocked out this year on KY state road 80. The ship that hit it was carrying a rocket to Cape Canaveral.
I came here right after that happened. We see the new (beautiful) bridge from our window.
It was a horrible tragedy.
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