Crossing the Sunshine Skyway Bridge from Manatee County to Pinellas County is always a visual thrill. The view of Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico , as well as the St. Petersburg Skyline, always delights me. It also brings back a flood of memories that happened over my lifetime. I once made a trip with three friends to Miami Beach for a weekend. Before that date, one had to cross the bay in a ferry boat, then pick up the Tamiami Trail on the other side. (so named because it went from Tampa to Miami.) While we were cavorting on Miami Beach and flirting with sailors from the Key West Naval Base, the newly constructed Sunshine Skyway bridge opened. It was Labor Day, 1954 and everyone in St. Pete decided to drive over to Sarasota and vice versa. There were no breakdown lanes then, so every other car in the slow moving lanes was overheated and stalled. On our return trip, we were determined to join the sightseers and therefore lengthened our trip by hours! But the view from the top of the bridge was worth it!
In May of 1980, I was visiting a sick aunt in St. Pete, staying overnight in Bradenton. As we crossed the bridge the night of May 8th, the rain was coming down and the wind was blowing fiercely. The children were a little spooked and it didn't help that my husband kept teasing them saying, "Oh, my, I can't control the steering wheel!" Needless to say, we made it.
Next morning, our relatives woke us to say that a large ship had hit one of the bridge piers and that the southbound lane had broken , sending many to their deaths.
It was with a quiet sense of our good fortune that we left early and traveled over the mainland to St. Pete on that day. You can find a wealth of information and good photos by simply googling "Sunshine Skyway crash" , but one video is worth watching for some chilling photographs.
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1 comment:
I couldn't get the Youtube link to work - maybe you can repost it.
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