Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse "In Color"

1. Fran
   February 4th, 2008 at 11:00 am

   That was horrifying. I'm so glad I didn't see this before my trip to Seattle last year.

2. Sasha
   February 4th, 2008 at 2:01 pm

   I used to live in Tacoma, and ride my motorcycle across that bridge frequently..even though the bridge is strong now, it is still a hairy ride. The winds are so strong, I would find myself leaning 30 degres into the wind the whole way across, trying to keep a straight track. It was a great skill exercise!

3. ann
   February 4th, 2008 at 3:06 pm

   I have never been able to calmly quietly cross long bridges...and it's sure to be worse now. I hate heights and stuff like this- it's the stuff of nightmares.

4. Courageous Grace
   February 4th, 2008 at 3:41 pm

   I used to live in Puyallup, my grandmother had lake front property in Shelton. We'd cross the Narrows bridge every time we went to the lake. It was always an adventure...

5. Justin
   February 4th, 2008 at 5:07 pm

   What I find amazing is how long that bridge could bend and twist into the wind before it broke apart!

6. Ed Hands
   February 4th, 2008 at 5:18 pm

   Lies!!! All Lies!!!

   Everyone knows that before 1970 everything was in black and white...

   =)

7. donna
   February 4th, 2008 at 6:17 pm

   I used to tell my kids about when the world was black and white, Ed. It only turned color during the filming of "The Wizard of Oz", a wonderful documentary. ;^)

8. avraamov
   February 4th, 2008 at 8:02 pm

   but what about the dog? 0_o

9. AbbyJoy
   February 4th, 2008 at 8:47 pm

   At the 4:00 mark it looks like he's carrying a dog. Whew!

10. Agnes
    February 4th, 2008 at 9:44 pm

    I'm suspicious of this video.
    Maybe I don't know much about suspension bridges, but is it really possible for the bridge to warp that much and not immediately crack the paved road surface? It looked like rubber in some of the longer shots. Weird.

11. skreidle
    February 4th, 2008 at 10:36 pm

    Fran: Fortunately, civil engineers have learned a lot about the aerodynamics and oscillations of bridges since then. (Actually, engineers realized the cause of the problem before the bridge collapsed, but not in enough time to do anything about it.)

12. ted
    February 4th, 2008 at 11:45 pm

    How suspicious we've become, that even this familiar piece of film stirs up doubt in some minds.

    Bridges are built to move a little, after all. This one just moved a little too much.

13. red
    February 5th, 2008 at 2:37 am

    I wonder how that must have sounded, twisting in the wind like that.

14. ~Emma
    February 5th, 2008 at 3:55 am

    I hate to be a 'Debbie Downer', but the doggie didn't survive.

    http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/TNBhistory/tubby.htm

    I grew up in a tiny Oklahoma town during the black and white era. Once, the newspaper did a story on my family because my dad rented a color tv so we could watch the Rose Bowl Parade in color.

    I'm not old...really...:)

15. Chad Cloman
    February 5th, 2008 at 5:14 am

    From the Wikipedia article: "Elliot's original films of the construction and collapse of the bridge were shot on 16mm Kodachrome film, but most copies in circulation are in black and white because newsreels of the day copied the film onto 35mm black and white stock."

16. BeX
    February 5th, 2008 at 9:35 am

    When I was a kid I would have nightmares where I was on very high fire escapes and they moved around like that.

17. Chad Cloman
    February 5th, 2008 at 10:27 am

    Also from the Wikipedia entry: "Tubby, a black male cocker spaniel dog, was the only fatality of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster. Leonard Coatsworth, a Tacoma News Tribune photographer, was driving with the dog over the bridge when it started to vibrate violently. Coatsworth was forced to flee his car, leaving Tubby behind. Professor Farquharson and a news photographer attempted to rescue Tubby, but the dog was too terrified to leave the car and bit one of the rescuers. Tubby died when the bridge fell, and neither his body nor the car were ever recovered."

18. avraamov
    February 5th, 2008 at 3:48 pm

    NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

19. Skipweasel
    February 5th, 2008 at 4:07 pm

    I would expect if you looked closer at the tarmac you'd see it was indeed crazed all over. It's just that the bits would be likely to stay in place as there was no compelling reason for them to move sideways, being locked in by their neighbours.

    After all, the actual twist in degrees per meter length of bridge is quite small. It looks much more dramatic in some shots because of the compression of perspective from the telephoto lens.

20. Haley
    February 5th, 2008 at 6:36 pm

    Yay! Tacoma! I live there. My grandma lived literally a minute away and she said it was the scariest thing she's ever seen.

21. Alex
    February 6th, 2008 at 2:30 am

    That's why we don't build things in natural frequency of winds anymore ... I've seen the clip several times in college, and every time it still moved me. Terrifying!

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