[chuckinca]

Below is a pic of a very famous bridge on the Mississippi River, can you name it and did you ever cross it?

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[BobnBev]

Chain of Rocks bridge, nope, never crossed it.

[kcrazorbackfan]

Chain of Rocks on the Illinois/Missouri line north of St. Louis. Never crossed on it but saw it many times from the I-270 bridge.

[justjim]

How come I don't see the rocks? Camera angle maybe or is it the Chain of Rocks Bridge?

[John_W]

Sorry for hijacking this thread, but I think it's neat to see things were not familiar. OP, if you prefer I can delete and start a new thread.

Here in our home state of Florida to show you the power of a hurricane, this was what Hurricane Ivan in 2006 did to the I-10 Bridge over Pensacola Bay.





The one nice thing that happened afterwards was the bridge was replaced by a much nicer 3 lanes in each direction bridge. I lived in Pensacola in the past for 6 years, a great town but very prone to hurricanes.





If you were crossing the I-10 bridge in 1978 and looked to the south you would of seen this.



That is National 193 that landed in Pensacola Bay. It's called Escambia Bay on the maps but no one uses that name. My crew was working that night, I was a controller at Pensacola Approach from 1976 to 1981. That's a barge with a crane that was able to lift the plane intact out of about 13' of water. They resold it for about a million dollars, I guess it's flying again somewhere.

The crew mistook barge lights and the shiny surface of the bay for the wet runway during a heavy rain storm. The ILS to the main runway 16 was down because of runway resurfacing, so the only approach was to runway 27 over the bay. Had they landed about a mile later they would of impacted a 100' high bank, the airiport elevation is much higher than the water level. So actually landing 3 miles short of the airport saved many lives, all but 3 people made it out alive, those three drown.

For those who fly, the approach was a surveillance approach. Sometimes called a GCA but only the military has altititude radar, we can only give azimuth, such as turn left, turn right and then we give recommended altitudes. In this case, 520' was the MDA (minimum descent altitude), which means the pilot should not bust that altitude unless they are sure they see the runway. In this case, their eyes lied to them. I believe both pilots were fired and National Airlines no longer exits. Back in the 70's National and Eastern along with Air Florida were major airlines in Florida and are not longer.

[justjim]

That area of Florida is much colder in the winter too. Plus the more direct hurricane threat. Along the Mississippi you are more concerned about tornados and, of course, floods.

[golf2140]

Part of old Rt 66

[ColdNoMore]

On the west end of that bridge is the world's best view from a Dairy Queen.

I never pass it up, as sitting out and eating an ice cream cone while overlooking the bay and bridge is pretty awesome.

[BobnBev]

John, awesome post, thank you so much.

[Taltarzac725]

Originally Posted by BobnBev

John, awesome post, thank you so much.

I enjoyed that too. It is nice to hear about the employment highs and lows from other TOTVers.

I was working my last day at the Bower's Manson concession stand in 1983 before heading out to start my MA studies at the University of Denver Graduate School of Librarianship and Information Management when this happened less than a mile to the north. Photos: Slide Mountain disaster, Memorial Day 1983

Tahoe Weekly1983 Memorial Day Flash Flood, Part I - Tahoe Weekly

The 1983 Memorial Day Flood Part 2 of 2 | TahoeDailyTribune.com

I had to take an hour detour to get back home going all around the Washoe Valley as the mudslide blocked my quick way home.

This made the news in MA where my Grandmother was who knew about my working at Bower's Mansion. Bowers Mansion--Three Historic Nevada Cities: Carson City, Reno and Virginia City--A National Register of Historic Places Travel Itinerary It sounded to her like the whole mountain came down.

If you are not aware of my other stories on TOTV I am kind of a Perils of Pauline person. Not sure why such bad things happen close to me.