Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 9, 2016 20:35:51 GMT 12
The night the bridge came down
Last updated 05:00, September 3 2016
A distant view of the broken bridge sections. Photo: Maurice Costello, Manawatu Standard, June 16, 1973.
It was a cold winter's night in 1973 when the Bulls Bridge collapsed.
Friday, June 15, 1973, just after 5pm. A light rain was falling.
Mervyn Farrington, 35, was driving his Weld Motors bus across the Bulls bridge, heading back to Palmerston North after dropping off some charter passengers.
A rope and temporary cable spans the gap between the broken sections of bridge. A wheel of the submerged bus sticks up out of the river. Photo: Maurice Costello, Manawatu Standard, June 16, 1973.
Suddenly, without warning: "A great slab of concrete reared up in front of the bus and then I was thrown into darkness."
The 24-year-old bridge, meant to last 100 years, had collapsed.
As the bus plunged into the freezing Rangitikei River, Farrington blacked out.
The morning after: a Post Office worker, left, repairs the cable link on the collapsed bridge. Photo: Maurice Costello, Manawatu Standard, June 16, 1973.
The shock of the icy water revived him, but the bus was sinking.
"I struggled to get free but couldn't" he told a Manawatu Standard reporter later, from his hospital bed.
"My ankle was trapped. The bus began to move and my leg came free. I got out through a smashed window." With his ankle broken, face, arms and chest gashed by the jagged window edges, Farrington ploughed through the water and reached for a bunch of debris near the riverbank.
The collapsed bridge, a picture taken just 20 minutes after it happened. Photo: Chris Grenville, Manawatu Standard, June 15, 1973.
Meanwhile, some good Samaritans swung into action.
Hearing the bang of the collapse, Mr P.Goldingham, a tearoom proprietor north of the bridge, had phoned police.
From a car directly behind the bus, 24-year-old sealing surface contractor Rick Reeves leapt out of his vehicle, stripped off some clothing and dived into the muddy river. He was joined by John Whitehead, 17.
Between them, they struggled through the water to Farrington, grabbed him and got him up on the bank. People there, including a truck driver who'd made five earlier trips across the bridge that day, helped carry Farrington to the road and a waiting ambulance.
Manawatu Standard reporters and photographer Chris Grenville were at the scene within 20 minutes, as were the police, who started diverting traffic on State Highway I. All north-bound traffic using the road was diverted through Kakariki, and southbound traffic through Greatford, four miles north of Bulls.
According to a Standard interview later from his Palmerston North hospital bed, Farrington, a Tiakitahuna father of seven children, was in a satisfactory condition, and grateful for his rescue. Worried about the bus though, he said: "it was only three months old and worth $30,000." (It would be hauled up out of the water two days later.)
On Saturday, June 16, deputy Prime Minister Hugh Watt, with Ministry of Works officials, arrived at the Bulls bridge site to make an on-the-spot inspection, helped by emergency generating equipment set up by men from the RNZAF base Ohakea. Ironically, the previous night had been the date of the Ohakea Sergeants' Mess winter ball. The bridge fell before most of the men had started home to change and collect their wives. (More than 200 base personnel lived in Bulls and commuted back and forth daily.)
Watt praised the rescuers, saying it was "a magnificent effort, deserving the highest praise".
The end of the bus was now just clear of the water, in a hole about 5.5 metres deep and91.5m downstream of the broken structure. A main communications link had been cut when the bridge collapsed, and the coaxial cable carrying telephone, teleprinter and telex messages between Wellington, Whanganui, Taranaki and Auckland was broken. Post Office workers were already on the scene, repairing the cable; one line was open, but only telephone calls with "top Government priority" were being made.
Rubber neckers crowded the banks over the next few days, about 400 arriving every hour. Police roadblocks stopped them getting too close. Traffic flow was speedily diverted to other routes.
Sheila Williams, driver of the third car behind the bus on the fateful night, told the Standard she'd had a premonition the bridge was "going to go." After a Manawatu earthquake a week earlier, she'd had a feeling of disaster. She'd even phoned her husband at Ohakea asking him to come home. "Mrs Williams said everybody had a good laugh at her, but she was proven right."
The M.O.W. decided the crumpled bridge pier had been weakened by heavy scouring of gravel from the riverbed.
Meanwhile, the Standard editor received letters from a Weld Motors representative and its drivers bitterly protesting the avalanche of news media swamping Mervyn Farrington in hospital.
The Standard replied it had interview permission from the Farrington family and hospital officials, but "couldn't speak for other media". The hospital later decided to bar news media henceforth from the intensive care unit.
Young Paul Dykes, soon to leave town for journalism training - and future Manawatu Standard reporter - was part of a three-man crew scooping out a hole for the new pier. The river had been partially diverted to allow dryish working conditions.
"It was quite a quick job," Dykes remembers.
"Maybe two weeks at the most. National TV news filmed us as we worked. The banks were littered with people. We'd been building the Mangaweka road bridge when we were called to do this job – we still had to get back to Mangaweka every Friday. We worked by hand, with jackhammers; cutting out the hole – 8ft (2.4 metres) wide, then 12ft (3.6 metres) down as a "bell" at the bottom. When we'd finished, other workers came in to build the new pier. You can still see the join to this day on the bridge, especially when coming south."
- Stuff
www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/lifestyle/83804335/The-night-the-bridge-came-down
Last updated 05:00, September 3 2016
A distant view of the broken bridge sections. Photo: Maurice Costello, Manawatu Standard, June 16, 1973.
It was a cold winter's night in 1973 when the Bulls Bridge collapsed.
Friday, June 15, 1973, just after 5pm. A light rain was falling.
Mervyn Farrington, 35, was driving his Weld Motors bus across the Bulls bridge, heading back to Palmerston North after dropping off some charter passengers.
A rope and temporary cable spans the gap between the broken sections of bridge. A wheel of the submerged bus sticks up out of the river. Photo: Maurice Costello, Manawatu Standard, June 16, 1973.
Suddenly, without warning: "A great slab of concrete reared up in front of the bus and then I was thrown into darkness."
The 24-year-old bridge, meant to last 100 years, had collapsed.
As the bus plunged into the freezing Rangitikei River, Farrington blacked out.
The morning after: a Post Office worker, left, repairs the cable link on the collapsed bridge. Photo: Maurice Costello, Manawatu Standard, June 16, 1973.
The shock of the icy water revived him, but the bus was sinking.
"I struggled to get free but couldn't" he told a Manawatu Standard reporter later, from his hospital bed.
"My ankle was trapped. The bus began to move and my leg came free. I got out through a smashed window." With his ankle broken, face, arms and chest gashed by the jagged window edges, Farrington ploughed through the water and reached for a bunch of debris near the riverbank.
The collapsed bridge, a picture taken just 20 minutes after it happened. Photo: Chris Grenville, Manawatu Standard, June 15, 1973.
Meanwhile, some good Samaritans swung into action.
Hearing the bang of the collapse, Mr P.Goldingham, a tearoom proprietor north of the bridge, had phoned police.
From a car directly behind the bus, 24-year-old sealing surface contractor Rick Reeves leapt out of his vehicle, stripped off some clothing and dived into the muddy river. He was joined by John Whitehead, 17.
Between them, they struggled through the water to Farrington, grabbed him and got him up on the bank. People there, including a truck driver who'd made five earlier trips across the bridge that day, helped carry Farrington to the road and a waiting ambulance.
Manawatu Standard reporters and photographer Chris Grenville were at the scene within 20 minutes, as were the police, who started diverting traffic on State Highway I. All north-bound traffic using the road was diverted through Kakariki, and southbound traffic through Greatford, four miles north of Bulls.
According to a Standard interview later from his Palmerston North hospital bed, Farrington, a Tiakitahuna father of seven children, was in a satisfactory condition, and grateful for his rescue. Worried about the bus though, he said: "it was only three months old and worth $30,000." (It would be hauled up out of the water two days later.)
On Saturday, June 16, deputy Prime Minister Hugh Watt, with Ministry of Works officials, arrived at the Bulls bridge site to make an on-the-spot inspection, helped by emergency generating equipment set up by men from the RNZAF base Ohakea. Ironically, the previous night had been the date of the Ohakea Sergeants' Mess winter ball. The bridge fell before most of the men had started home to change and collect their wives. (More than 200 base personnel lived in Bulls and commuted back and forth daily.)
Watt praised the rescuers, saying it was "a magnificent effort, deserving the highest praise".
The end of the bus was now just clear of the water, in a hole about 5.5 metres deep and91.5m downstream of the broken structure. A main communications link had been cut when the bridge collapsed, and the coaxial cable carrying telephone, teleprinter and telex messages between Wellington, Whanganui, Taranaki and Auckland was broken. Post Office workers were already on the scene, repairing the cable; one line was open, but only telephone calls with "top Government priority" were being made.
Rubber neckers crowded the banks over the next few days, about 400 arriving every hour. Police roadblocks stopped them getting too close. Traffic flow was speedily diverted to other routes.
Sheila Williams, driver of the third car behind the bus on the fateful night, told the Standard she'd had a premonition the bridge was "going to go." After a Manawatu earthquake a week earlier, she'd had a feeling of disaster. She'd even phoned her husband at Ohakea asking him to come home. "Mrs Williams said everybody had a good laugh at her, but she was proven right."
The M.O.W. decided the crumpled bridge pier had been weakened by heavy scouring of gravel from the riverbed.
Meanwhile, the Standard editor received letters from a Weld Motors representative and its drivers bitterly protesting the avalanche of news media swamping Mervyn Farrington in hospital.
The Standard replied it had interview permission from the Farrington family and hospital officials, but "couldn't speak for other media". The hospital later decided to bar news media henceforth from the intensive care unit.
Young Paul Dykes, soon to leave town for journalism training - and future Manawatu Standard reporter - was part of a three-man crew scooping out a hole for the new pier. The river had been partially diverted to allow dryish working conditions.
"It was quite a quick job," Dykes remembers.
"Maybe two weeks at the most. National TV news filmed us as we worked. The banks were littered with people. We'd been building the Mangaweka road bridge when we were called to do this job – we still had to get back to Mangaweka every Friday. We worked by hand, with jackhammers; cutting out the hole – 8ft (2.4 metres) wide, then 12ft (3.6 metres) down as a "bell" at the bottom. When we'd finished, other workers came in to build the new pier. You can still see the join to this day on the bridge, especially when coming south."
- Stuff
www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/lifestyle/83804335/The-night-the-bridge-came-down