We are staying in an RV Park just outside Huntington. It is a skydiving airport, but have not seen any planes; probably a weekend thing. They brag you can drive, fly, or boat here. We are next to the Ohio River. Anyway, today we travelled to Point Pleasant about 35 miles northeast of Huntington. Two events there in recent times kind of put them on the map.
The first was the collapse of the Silver Bridge in December of 1967. This bridge went over the Ohio River, connecting Ohio and West Virginia. There were some 35 vehicles on it at the time of collapse. 47 people died, 9 were seriously injured. The cause was the failure of a suspension component. The bridge is a suspension bridge like the Mackinaw Bridge, but instead of a really big cable they used what they called a chain suspension.
Envision how a bicycle chain is made. The failure occured at one of the pivot pin locations. They referred to it as an eye bar.
This is the end of an eye bar, with the pin used in front. The failure was actually at the eye, where the pin goes through. It was felt to be cracked, possibly at the time of construction in 1929. The load of cars and trucks caused it to fail at the crack. It was a chain reaction, as now the other eye bars (chain links) could not carry the load, however the others broke in the center, not at the eye.
The small blue tag identifies the link that broke in this model. At the time the bridge was built it was state of the art, the links were high carbon steel (new material at the time), but they have since determined a cable, like the Big Mac uses, is stronger. And, the bridge was built in the days of the Model T and 5000 pound trucks and traffic volume was much lower. So you have to wonder if it would have failed at some point anyway. Also wonder if WVDOT and ODOT got sued over it.
A new bridge was built and in use today. It is a conventional bridge, not a suspension bridge.
Now the strange part to the story; the Mothman.
In November 1966, thirteen months before the bridge collapsed, two couples travelling in the same car reported seeing a creature similar to the statue they have in a park. During the year prior to the bridge failure, several Mothman sightings were reported. The museum has recordings, statements, and newspaper articles about several sightings by people in Point Pleasant.
Several things were a little unexpected in the museum. There was no “official” connection between the Mothman sightings and the bridge failure. Secondly, there was a connection made between Mothman and UFO sightings that started in May 1966. And thirdly, there were sightings of Men In Black in town around this timeframe. Dan believes MIB are secret, government agents in charge of catching outerspace aliens and taking them to Area 51.
There was also a fair amount of stuff about the movie Mothman Prophecies. The most surprising was that the whole movie was shot in Kittanning, PA. No scenes were shot here. Some of the movie people showed up at at the Mothman statue dedication just after the movie debuted.
Do we believe in Mothman? Well, after reading the eye witness accounts, its hard not to believe they saw something. It is also an interesting coincidence that the sightings ended after the bridge failure.
We finished off the day eating at a really unusual “restaurant.” Called Hillbilly Hot Dogs, it was not exactly a gourmet restaurant.
All they serve is hot dogs with a variety of fixin’s that make them special. But its really about the ambience. We are eating in a school bus. A very interesting experience.
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