Legacy of upstate bridge collapse endures

Three men returning from a bowling tournament. A mother and daughter heading to a baby shower. Two Shriners who had gone to a black-tie dinner and were heading home to Toronto. A married couple driving to Texas. A truck driver heading from Green Bay, Wis., to Goshen in Orange County.

One fateful moment brought them all together 25 years ago at 10:50 a.m. on a Sunday morning, April 5, 1987. As they drove along the New York State Thruway near Fort Hunter, the bridge collapsed. All 10 died.

The bridge came down during a spring flood caused by snow melt and torrential rains.

George King, who was then assistant fire chief of Fort Hunter Engine and Hose Co., remembers monitoring water levels on Schoharie Street in Fort Hunter that day.

"I had my binoculars looking up the creek," he said. "I could see a tractor-trailer coming off the bridge into the creek. I thought he was rubbernecking and drove off the bridge. When the water subsided, there was a gap. The bridge was gone."

The 540-foot-long bridge plunged 84 feet, sending four cars and one truck into the raging waters of a flooded Schoharie Creek in Montgomery County. The cause was determined to be a failure to properly design, build and maintain the bridge. Built in the 1950s, the bridge's supports had concrete footings dug 6 feet into the riverbed, instead of piles driven into the bedrock needed because the riverbed soil was vulnerable to washing away.

Though the design called for footings to be buried in a deep layer of stone held in place by metal sheeting, neither was installed, and a thinner layer of riprap around the footings was improperly maintained.

The collapse had an impact that lasts to this day, said Carol Breen, spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation.

"After the Schoharie Bridge collapse, the federal Highway Administration made diving inspections a routine," she said.