04-The Day the Skyway Fell

I stumped my car in the middle of the interstate, no one around. Fog as thick as pea soup. I know that sounds cliche, but in this case it applied. It was raining so hard that just the act of opening my driver door to get out saturated me in a matter of seconds. But what I saw next made me forget about all of that. In front of me was a piece of roadway grated upward towards the center span of the bridge. The problem, though, that stopped me dead in my tracks, is that the center span of the bridge was gone. Says this is a United States Coast Guard Saint Petersburg, Florida. The vessel Some Adventure six hundred and six foot has hit the Skyway Bridge. Any vessels in Tampa Bay Area Skyway Vicinity proceed and assists. There are reports of people in the water. I'm Jim pulling, and this is my view from the middle. I wanted to be in broadcasting since I was seven years old. My dad brought home an old console stereo set from goodwill that I turned into a DJ setup. The setup was in the basement and I placed a speaker upstairs in the living room. I took a used calking compound tube and stuck a disc microphone from a cannibalized intercom system also bought at Goodwill into the end of the tube. Duct taped the tube to an old Gooseeneck floor lamp stand, wired it to the stereo set, and waa. I was ready to be Wolfman Jack or J. P. McCarthy or any number of other radio icons. I would do DJ shows for my parents. They didn't seem to mind and were supportive of my goofy hobby. Jump ahead to nineteen seventy nine, after moving to Florida with my parents when they retired, I was a late baby. I wound up getting a job at a grocery store. Some might know remember Albertson's, the big combo drug and grocery stores that used to be everywhere until they were shut out by their competition. How I wound up there is a story for another episode, but suffices to say. I was on a management track at Albertson's. But one day in nineteen seventy nine, I woke up and said to myself, what am I doing? I wanted to go into radio. What am I doing in this retail thing? We have all probably heard of the story of Spanish explorer Hernando Cortes. In the year fifteen nineteen, Cortes landed his fleet of eleven ships, five hundred soldiers and one hundred sailors on the shores of the Yucatan. He was there to wrestle the treasure at the hands of the Aztecs who had been hoarding it. Trouble was, those Aztec dudes had been there for a while, so he was grossly outnumbered, and his men knew it, and few at any confidence that they would succeed. At their mists, some of them tried to hijack some boats in high tail at to Cuba, but all Hernando found out about it and put a stop to it. Then, in a move that freaked everybody out, Cortes scuttled and burned all of his own ships. Take that now they had to move forward because there was no going back. So that's what I did. I burned my ship at Albertson's. I turned in my notice. Now I was out of a job, and I had to find something in radio just to survive. There used to be a publication called the Broadcasting Yearbook. Not sure they publish it anymore, since all the information it contained is available online now, but it listed every radio and television station in the country, along with addresses and phone numbers. I went to the public library and copied the pages, covering the southern half of Florida. I mapped out a route that took me from Largo, where I currently live that's near Saint Petersburg, and went down over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge and then south down the west coast of the state. I was determined to hit every radio station along that route and not stop until someone hired me. Well, believe it or not, it worked. After knocking on the doors of several radio stations, a one thousand WAT daytimer, a station that only operates from sun up to sundown. An all news radio station in Sarasota had an opening for a feature manager, paying a whopping one hundred and thirty five dollars a week. I jumped at it. Rewriting the words to Hugh Wilson's theme song to the popular TV series WKRP in Cincinnati, I sang, Baby, if you ever wondered wondered where I am today, I'm living on the air in Sarasota, Sarasota WQSA. I know it's cheesy. I didn't care. I finally had a job in radio. I found a cheap room in which to live in Bradenton for twenty five bucks a week. Didn't matter. I was hardly ever there. I worked from nine in the morning until noon, and came back in the evening when the station was off the air, and dubbed tapes from six pm to midnight. Eventually they let me read some news breaks on the air. Those are one minute headlines. Then they'll let me anchor some newscasts on the weekend. Now I stunk at first, but with coaching and patients from an understanding program director Jay Frank, I became better and better. In addition to the news breaks, I ran the board for a couple of talk shows. I also got to do some commercial production when needed. They even started sending me out to cover some news stories. And that's what leads me to the story today of the foggy day on the bridge. So we jump ahead a bit to May nineteen eighty. I had been working for WQSA for several months, running the board, dubbing tapes, doing some newscasts, and occasionally some news reporting, things like covering the Sarasota County Commission meetings. Not very exciting stuff like eating melba toast, but I rolled with it. I upgraded my living situation to a duplex apartment along the Manatee River in Bradenton. My parents lived in Saint Petersburg, and when I could, I would make the short trip over Tampa Bay via the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, the entrance to which was a stone's throw from my apartment. In those days, the Skyway was a dual span structure, a northbound span and a southbound span, each carrying two lanes of traffic. The center of each span consisted of a steel grating that made a howling noise as you drove over it. If you were to look down, you would see the bay one hundred and sixty five feet below through the grating. It was a bit scary driving over the center span in fair weather, but many times I would drive over the bridge in a rainstorm. Now that was an experience. It was probably my imagination, but that center span, originally constructed in nineteen fifty four or nineteen sixty nine, depending on whether you're on the northbound or southbound structure, seemed to soay it. The wind as you drove over it. I remember driving over it in a blinding rainstorm, with fog so dense you could barely see the other end of the span as you were driving over the center. In the early morning of Friday, May ninth, nineteen eighty, I was getting ready to go into the station. The weather outside was horrible. It was raining hard and extremely foggy. When you live on the Manateee River, you got used to the ground fog, especially in the spring, but the fog seemed particularly heavy on this day, and the rain made it worse. I had the TV on and suddenly they interrupted with a bulletin something had happened at the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Details were a bit sketchy. It was so foggy it was hard to tell what was going on. I turned on my radio station to be sure they had the story. They did, but they didn't have any real details either, other than to say one of the spans was out out. How the hell does a major interstate highway bridge have a span out? I thought to myself. My heart was beating a mile a minute. I knew I lived closer to the Skyway than any other person on the staff at the radio station. My instincts told me that I needed to get to the Skyway and find out what was going on. The station had sent me out to cover news stories before, but never anything like this. The biggest thing I had ever covered was the Sarasota County Commission. I called the station and asked them what they wanted me to do. They agreed I should get to the scene as soon as possible. This was one of those situations where management can't be picky about who covers a big story. I was obviously available and geographically closer to the story than anyone else. This was an opportunity for me. I got in my car and sped to the Skyway entrance. The only press id I had was an orange piece of paper that the County Commission had given me as a parking pass. But it did say press in big black letters, so I figured I'd give it a shot flow and behold it worked. I got to a police checkpoint, flashed the orange piece of paper and told them who I was with, and asked if anyone knew anything. The officer told me the southbound span of the Skyway had collapsed. He let me through the barricade. Holy crap, I thought, to myself. I may have even said it out loud. I drove over to the entrance to the southbound span, now heading the wrong way on an interstate highway, so I was hoping the officer was right and the span really was out, otherwise I would be nailed by oncoming traffic heading over the bridge from Saint Petersburg. It was raining pretty hard at this point, and the fog was as heavy as I'd ever seen it. I drove northward onto the southbound span of the bridge. I was only able to see maybe fifty feet in front of the car, so I was proceeding with extreme caution. All of a sudden, I hit the brakes. I thought I was hallucinating, or perhaps the fog was playing tricks on me. I got out of my car, now stop in the middle of the interstate with no one around, and started walking. It was raining so hard I was saturated in a matter of moments. I stopped and stared in disbelief, rain running down my face, over my clothes, into my shoes. But I stood there and stared. There in front of me was a piece of roadway grated upward toward the center span of the bridge, but there was no center span of the bridge. The roadway just stopped beyond it. There was nothing, or so it appeared, since all I could see was fog and driving rain. Holy crap, I thought to myself. This time I did say it out loud. I better get the hell out of here before this part of the bridge goes too. So I got in the car, did a U turn, and got the heck out of Dodge. I found the nearest payphone of you remember those the forerunner to the phone. Then I called the station and ad libbed a live report on the air, probably my first real live on the scene news report ever. The southbound span of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge collapsed into Tampa Bay at seven thirty three am on May ninth, nineteen eighty when the freighter MV sum Adventure, piloted by John Liro, ran into a pier while negotiating the narrow channel under the bridge in the midst of the rain and fog. The chatter on Coastguard Maritime Radio Channel sixteen set it all day there no there, no shop Guard may day and there stop Guard Kyla Bregy down set oh let me get come out to Skylight Brink with Skyland bridges down and mayday let me sit right. Stop the traffic on that skylight bridge. This is Coastguard Saint Petersburg alive. What size is the vessel that hit the bridge over the large crack road stopped? The track become a skylight brench. Some people in the ward had under seat. We have to scoll a brink. You know. This is Coast Guard Saint Petersburg Roagra. What vessel you on over from Adventures from Venture Adventure Coast Guards Saint Petersburg Rogier. What is the size of your vestling? Can you assist over to the fifth or six hundred sixteen long white ground? We can not assist here in orderment strup all the camp on the bridge, so the rubble on him and render assist as people will report. This is Conscott Saint Petersburg Roger. A greyhound bus and six other vehicles plunged one hundred and sixty five feet into Tampa Bay, killing thirty five people. A massive rescue operation got a new way all stations. This is a United States Coast Guard, Saint Petersburg, Florida. The vessel some Adventure six hundred and six foot has hit the skyway bridge. Any vessels in Tampa Bay Area skywaves y Groceede and assists. There are reports of people in the water break this Adunati States Coast Guard. Saint Petersburg, Florida Hour, a talk show personality by the name of Peter Johns hosted an evening radio show on a competing radio station in town. John's had a low voice and a deliberate Walter Cronkite type on air delivery. He also had a pension for the dramatic and would insert long dramatic pauses. Like Paul Harvey, everybody was trying to imitate everybody else. The opening teas of his evening show on that horrible day was Friday, May ninth, nineteen eighty, the day the Skyway fell. With the station's blessing, I spent the better part of the next three days on scene at the Skyway bridge. They opened up a portion of the northbounds band foot traffic, just reporters, law enforcement and rescue workers. I remember standing on the bridge with a bunch of other reporters watching a crane pull that flattened greyhound bust from the water, human limbs sticking out of the window. It was one of the most disgusting things I had seen to date. I remember commenting to the other reporters, do you realize that there are people in Tallahassee right now trying to determine if the part of the bridge were standing on is say, for us to be standing on? They weren't amused. Eventually J Frank, the program director WQSA, left the station. There appeared to be no one left who really cared about the format or the radio station, so I stepped up to fill the void. One of the other more experienced guys was named operations manager, but they hung the title of assistant operations manager on me, guests who wound up doing most of the work. But I didn't mind. I learned a lot about the various aspects of broadcasting simply by doing things out of necessity and figuring them out. After all, I had experienced running my make shift radio station in my parents' basement. How hard can it be? So there I was in the middle, a newbie in the world of broadcasting, cutting my teeth at a small, daytime only radio station on the west coast of Florida. AL rainy, foggy morning in May nineteen eighty that found me thrust into the middle of one of the worst maritime disasters in the history of Tampa Bay. Up until this point in my life, where I was headed with all this was about as clear as the visibility on that bridged that disastrous morning. But these experiences helped lift the fog and proved invaluable for me in my future, a future I could now clearly see. I'm jimpolling, and that's my view from the middle. In the next episode, getting in the middle of a predicament that ends up with a written apology scent to the mayor of the city of Hornlando. Stupid is as stupid does. Next, on my view from the middle, them would