The dark memories remain

I wonder what will happen once the new bridge is completed a few years from now. Strangely enough the state is expecting that at least some people will need to cross it but will be too afraid to do so. Apparently officials have asked the business that now drives the fearful across the Bay Bridge to set up shop in Baltimore once the new Key Bridge is open. Then the state will have not one, but possibly two notorious bridges that people are scared of! The new bridge will be far safer and more modern than its predecessor, but yet this shows that the dark memories remain. The site of tragedy still evokes horror in some people, not unlike an eerily similar disaster that happened long ago, in another place far away.

Over forty years ago a bridge in Florida was struck by an errant cargo ship, causing one of the two spans to collapse into the Tampa Bay. The original Sunshine Skyway Bridge was very similar to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in that it was roughly the same length and had two spans. It had only one main ship crossing point but that was a truss bridge very much like the one on the eastern side of the Bay Bridge. More people died in that collision than on the Key Bridge, including a full busload that crashed down into the water where all of the occupants died. But still, that earlier tragedy will be forever linked to the Key Bridge collapse in so many ways.

The Skyway was rebuilt as a single span, a hideous and creepy looking gargantuan steel and concrete spinosaurus slithering its way across the bay. It is quite different from the earlier version. It has all of the allure of many venomous snakes – beautiful, elegant and captivating, but it can be absolutely deadly and lethal. And like a deadly carnivorous reptile (or dinosaur), it too has tasted blood. Lots and lots of blood… Between the current monster and its slain predecessor, hundreds have died there. Most all were done in by their own choice to submit to the beast’s deadly charm and leap from its main span. But at least one gory demise on that bridge was actually a murder. The Key Bridge also bore this stain of Cain, as someone threw a child to its death off of the bridge years ago. I am not sure about the Bay Bridge, but it would not surprise me in the least if it also was likewise marked. As for the New River Gorge Bridge, I am not aware of any deaths that were not self-inflicted.

Not too long ago, the state of Florida, like the infamous Doctor Frankenstein, has tried to reign in and control the deadly monster they created. In an attempt to de-fang the serpent, they have fenced off the edges of the main span of the bridge to try and stop people from attempting to jump, or at least make it more difficult to do so. In the Mary Shelly novel Frankenstein, eventually the townspeople had to finally step in and destroy the marauding monster when Doctor Frankenstein was unwilling to do so himself. But unlike that fictional flesh and blood creature, this concrete and steel monstrosity does serve a necessary and important purpose. In India, if a tiger turns to man-eating, wildlife authorities will try to capture it rather than kill it. Then they place it in a zoo where it will live out its life behind bars. This is because tigers are endangered, and they do have a very necessary place in nature and must be preserved whenever possible to continue the species. A tiger in a zoo can only kill a careless keeper, or perhaps someone who will make some effort to meet their fate by climbing into its enclosure. Likewise the malevolent metal spinosaurus of Tampa Bay can now only preside over the deaths of the most determined.