About two dozen students from Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University, boarded a bus in 1980 at the end of the school year.
They were headed home on a Greyhound bus traveling to Florida.
They never made it.
Those students were among the 35 people killed when a freighter, Summit Venture, caught in hurricane-force wind and rain slammed into the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay.
It has been 40 years since May 9, 1980, when United Press International story reported in The Patriot that the bus, three cars and a pickup truck were sent “hurtling into Tampa Bay 150 feet below.”
“Rush-hour motorists who saw the southbound span collapse leaped from their cars in the blinding rain to try to warn those behind them. One screamed over his CB radio that the bridge was gone.
But the Chicago-to-Miami bus carrying 22 passengers and its driver, the three cars and the truck drove past them and toppled off the ragged end of the towering interstate highway span. All nine persons in the three cars died. Only the driver of the pickup truck survived.”
Debris from Sunshine Skyway Bridge between St. Petersburg and Bradenton, Fla. covers the bow of the freighter Summit Venture after it hit the bridge during a thundershower early Friday, May 9, 1980. (AP Photo)ASSOCIATED PRESS
The truck driver said he got out of his sinking truck then was pulled from the water by the crew of Summit Venture.
Diver Michael Betz had only been working for the DOT for five days when the Skyway collapsed.
— Gabrielle Calise (@gabriellecalise) May 6, 2020
"It’s like joining the fire department on September 6," his dive partner said. "And then 9/11 comes in, you're climbing up the steps in the Twin Towers.”https://t.co/gPw8ce0oH2
“Capt. Marshall Gilbert, Coast Guard commander at St. Petersburg, said divers working in the 50-foot-deep bay recovered 18 bodies, then suspended the search at dusk, but had sighted other victims trapped in the underwater rubble of twisted girders and concrete slabs.”
According to UPI, “The bus had left Chicago on a regular run Wednesday night, due in Miami Friday afternoon. It had stopped in Indianapolis, Ind., Louisville, Ky., Birmingham and Montgomery, Ala., and Tallahassee, Fla.”
The St. Pete Catalyst this week has been featuring stores about the tragedy for the 40th anniversary including interviews with survivors.
Debris from the Sunshine Skyway Bridge perched on the bow of the freighter 'Summit Venture' after the vessel rammed the bridge during a thunderstorm at Tampa Bay, Florida, May 9, 1980. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)Getty Images
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