(2 of 2)
Student Brown had crossed once, was halfway back, when the rippling suddenly stopped. Horrid groans and wails came from the taut steel overhead. Lampposts jerked back and forth, broke loose, leaped over the side. Reporter Coatsworth's car smashed into the curb. The reporter got out, was pitched forward on his face. Both men, seasick, tried to get up. As they crawled forward, they were knocked down again. Concrete popped like popcorn; large chunks broke loose, whistled through the air. As the roadway buckled over on its side, Student Brown looked down at the water 190 feet below: "I thought I was a goner. ..."
Professor Farquharson hurried back ashore for more film, made his way out on the stricken bridge again as Brown and Coatsworth crawled—stopping when their breath gave out—toward the Tacoma end. From the logging truck a man and woman scrambled and clawed their way to safety. Professor Farquharson discovered Reporter Coatsworth's dog in the automobile, tried to save it, found it sick and frightened, got nipped on the knuckle. Still convinced the bridge would fight it out, he got back toward shore. He watched while it buckled up at an angle of 45 degrees. Vertical steel cables—the suspenders—crashed explosively as they parted. The great main cable, freed of its weight, tightened like a bow string, whipping the vertical cables into the air like fish lines. Reporter Coatsworth's car with dog inside plunged into the Sound. All five people on the bridge escaped, all badly battered. Professor Farquharson, retreating behind the towers, watched as the central span rose higher in a last release of tension, snapped, and plunged into the water 190 ft. below.
Builder Moisseiff said only that the bridge failed because engineers do not yet know enough about aerodynamics, that lack of funds had forced the building of a bridge unprecedentedly narrow for its length. In Tacoma, chief engineer of the bridge, Clark Eldridge, charged bitterly that State highway engineers had protested the design, had been told that Federal money-lending agencies demanded the employment of a nationally famous engineer as a requirement for lending the money. With the bridge covered by insurance, Tacoma citizens waited to find out whether it could be rebuilt, whether the same towers and approaches could be used.
* Its centre span (2,800 ft.) is the third longest in the world. Longer: George Washington (3,500) across the Hudson at Manhattan, Golden Gate (4,200) at San Francisco.