Sunday, December 15, 2024, marks the 57th anniversary of the collapse of the Silver Bridge, which connected the communities of Point Pleasant, West Virginia and Gallipolis, Ohio. The bridge collapsed without warning at 4:58 p.m., Friday, December 15, 1967, as many were scrambling to complete their Christmas shopping. The tragedy led to the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968, which established a National Bridge Inspection Program which created bridge inspection standards still in use today.
"The unexpected tragic collapse of the Silver Bridge on December 15, 1967, was an alarming wake-up call for bridge owners across the nation that our infrastructure was getting older and bridge conditions needed to be assessed on a routine schedule and in a systematic way, and a large group of folks needed to be trained and educated as to what to look for and how it pertained to public safety," said Tracy Brown, P.E., State Bridge Engineer for the West Virginia Department of Transportation (WVDOT).
At 5 p.m. Sunday, December 15, 2024, officials will gather at the site of the former bridge approach on Sixth Street in Point Pleasant to commemorate the 46 people killed in the bridge collapse. A bell will be rung and names read for each of those who lost their lives on the bridge 57 years ago.
The collapse of the Silver Bridge led directly to the standardized federal National Bridge Inspection Standards (NBIS) that all states and jurisdictions are required by law to follow.
"The entire program is founded upon the safety of the public, which is paramount in everything we do," said Brown. "Personally, I use that terrible event to illustrate just how important our bridge safety inspection program is, and how important it is to do it properly. Our bridge safety inspection program allows us to discover issues before they have the chance to become big problems or safety concerns, and to act proactively instead of reactively."
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According to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), West Virginia has one of the most effective bridge inspection programs in the country for the state's approximately 7,200 bridges. Under the program, every bridge in the state is subject to detailed inspections at least every two years, and more frequently if needed.
The program works. In December 2023, a special bridge inspection on the Jennings Randolph Bridge in Chester discovered minor cracking in the T-1 steel beams that make up the bridge. The bridge was temporarily closed, repairs made, and the bridge quickly returned to service.
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In November and December of this year, a special bridge inspection on the 31st Street Bridge in Huntington led to the discovery of minor deterioration in some strands of wire in two of the 62 cables that hold up the bridge. Repairs were quickly made with traffic still on one lane of the bridge, and engineers were able to remove a 20-ton weight limit that had been placed on the span.
Brown said the state's bridge inspection program is like going for a medical checkup.
"I doubt many people enjoy visiting a doctor, but if there is a health issue it is best to catch something early when there are more treatment alternatives available to hopefully have an easy, complete, and healthy recovery," Brown said. "If we check on our bridges routinely by inspecting them thoroughly and on a specific interval, we will catch these issues early and be able to address them more easily and at a lower cost."
In the past few years, the WVDOT has made great strides in improving the health of its bridges. The agency has adopted a 10-year bridge maintenance plan using sophisticated computer software to track the inspection history and health of every single bridge in the state.
The plan has allowed the WVDOT to make informed, data-driven decisions about what bridges to fix, which ones to replace, and when fixing a bridge has become more expensive than replacing it with a new structure.
"Before, we were taking most of our money and replacing bad bridges with it," Brown said. "It was a 'worst first' mentality. That's not usually the most efficient use of our funding in the long run.
"Today, we run our data through the bridge management system to maximize our benefits for the least amount of cost," Brown said. "The bridge management system gives us the best bang for our buck."
And it's all directly traceable to the Silver Bridge.
"Each year, when December 15 comes up, I always think about how close it is to the Christmas holidays," Brown said. "There would never be a good time for something like this to happen, but Christmas to me is supposed to be about family and spending time with the ones you love and care about. Many families back in 1967 unfortunately didn't get that opportunity.
"This tragedy should never be forgotten, and we should use it as a reason to reach forward and try harder in everything we do so that no one will ever have to experience anything like it again," Brown said. "There are no shortcuts in this business. No matter what, you do whatever it takes to ensure the public's safety."
