‘Cars just started flying’

DENNIS and Jamie Winegar were stuck in late rush-hour traffic when the Mississippi River bridge beneath them began to shake. Their nephew yelled, “It’s an earthquake!”

“Then we realised the bridge was collapsing,” Jamie Winegar said.

“Boom, boom, boom, and we were just dropping.”

Behind the wheel, Dennis Winegar fought to keep their Houston family’s Chrysler under control.

“I slammed on my brakes and saw something in front of me disappear and then my car pointed straight down and we fell.”

He estimated they dropped about 50 feet, landing on a smaller car below them.

Other drivers were getting out of their cars and trying to help people off the bridge.

Nearby on the ruined span, a school bus filled with children returning from a day of swimming hung at a slight angle on the broken concrete. Ryan Watkins said the bus bounced a couple of times, then stopped with its front door wedged against a concrete traffic barrier. He and the other children jumped out the rear door.

Catherine Yankelevich was still inside her vehicle as it tumbled into the Mississippi River.

“Cars just started flying and I was falling and saw the water,” Yankelevich said.

She was able to climb out the driver’s side window and swim to shore.

“It seemed like a movie,” she said. “I never expected anything like this to happen here.”

Jay Reeves was driving about 150 yards from the bridge when he saw its green metal superstructure move and then saw a cloud of rust-coloured dust.

As he hurried toward the bridge, Reeves could hear children from the bus screaming. At the same time, he heard a loud groaning sound from the metal bridge. !

“Honestly, the first thought I had was, ‘this isn’t happening’,” he said.