35 Years Later, A Memorial For Victims Of Bridge Collapse
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ST. PETERSBURG (CBSMiami/AP) — Thirty-five years after Tampa Bay's Sunshine Skyway Bridge disaster a monument has been dedicated to the 35 victims.
The six-foot-tall monument was unveiled on Saturday, the 35th anniversary of the bridge collapse.
A 600-foot freighter struck the southbound span of the bridge during a violent storm on May 9, 1980, causing eight vehicles on the bridge's center section to collapse into Tampa Bay.
The granite memorial features the names of those killed and an engraving of the original Skyway Bridge, which had been a pair of side-by-side bridge spans made out of steel frames.
The monument is located at the water's edge next to the Blackthorn Memorial Park in St. Petersburg on the northern side of the current Skyway.
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