Does anyone know the dates of the ship/bridge collisions that destroyed the vertical-lift bridge on the EC line in Savannah? I was a kid growing up in Savannah at the time, and seem to remember that one of the disasters occurred on a Halloween night, but can't remember the years. The first accident destroyed the south tower of the bridge. It was rebuilt quickly to provide easy access to Hutchinson Island as well as the EC line to Charleston... the second collision, several years later, sounded the final death-knell for the old SAL line to Charleston... the bridge was scrapped. It was a very impressive structure located adjacent to the Union Camp Paper Mill. I would also be interested in any photos of the bridge. I have some old Savannah post card that show the bridge in the background, but none with any good detail. I will be in Savannah later this summer and would like to pull up the newspaper articles if anyone can help me zero in on the dates. Thanks, Tom Alderman

-- Tom Alderman (Topa12283@aol.com), May 27, 1999

Answers

Know this is an old question, but I saw it earlier and have been trying to find it for a couple of hours now. Anyway I have all of the old SCL mags and I will see if I can locate the article and picture for you assuming you are still interested.

-- Dave Rogers (daveandgailrogers@prodigy.net), February 12, 2000.

Tom, Good luck with finding pictures and I'd appreciate it greatly if you find any good photos. There was an article on the bridge in an early issue of the SCL RR Magazine, mentioning something about the bridge "going down SAL, and coming back up SCL", which should tell you what time frame the bridge was knocked out. They took it down for good in the early 1970's but when I was writing an article for Lines South I got so many conflicting dates that I just avoided the subject altogether. Savannah's a great town...I grew up there, and it's full of ACL and SAL. If you'd like to chat more, I can also be reached at my other e-mail address, GoldenJD@usfk.korea.army.mil. Good luck to you!

V/R, JG

-- John Golden (Golden1014@yahoo.com), August 20, 1999.