At around 7pm Pacific Daylight Time, a section of the Interstate 5 collapsed, sending cars into Skagit River in Washington.
The 58-year-old bridge was labeled "fracture critical" last year during an inspection, meaning that just damage to a single structural part could take the whole bridge down. Luckily, only one section of the bridge collapsed, and the three people involved in the incident miraculously survived.
A semi-truck with a unusually tall and wide load hit the right corner of the bridge.
"I saw it. I was less than 50 feet away from the truck when it hit it. I had just passed it in the fast lane southbound and it had an oversized load. It was approximately 12 feet wide and over 14 feet tall."
The load's "whip" allegedly started "hitting the bridge," said Dale Ogden, a witness of the incident. "I looked in my rearview mirror knowing this was not going to turn out well."
The truck tipped up about 30 degrees then came back down, but the bridge could not sustain the downward force and came crumbling down.
"You talk miracles. I don't know what you want to call it. When you're sitting down in the water and all that mangled metal of the bridge. You look around and you pinch yourself," said Dan Sligh who dislocated his shoulder during the tumble, while his wife with him in the pickup truck was knocked unconscious. They and a 20-year-old man were able to get out of their vehicles alive.
The search and rescue team would continue search Friday morning to be sure that no others fell into the water last night.
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