Baltimore bridge disaster echoes Fassett collapse in 1957

The Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster early Tuesday in Baltimore evokes for some Toledoans the demise of a local bridge that was felled by a wind-blown ship nearly 67 years ago.

The Fassett Street Bridge once connected East Toledo and the city’s South End neighborhood just downstream of a narrow and sharp bend in the Maumee River. Completed in 1896, the long, spindly, truss-design structure got sideways glances almost immediately, and it sustained major weather damage twice before its ultimate demise — once from river ice, the second time from wind.

And wind was deemed a major factor when a wayward ship finally took the Fassett bridge down on April 5, 1957.

Gusts estimated at 80 mph blew the Champlain, an 8,700-ton lake freighter, from its nearby mooring and sent it crashing into the middle of the bridge, destroying three spans. Two cars were on the bridge at the time, but both made it safely to shore.

The bridge was never repaired and was dismantled in 1960. Until the I-75 DiSalle Bridge’s construction in 1963, the Anthony Wayne Bridge was left as the most upstream of Toledo’s river crossings, with the next one at the Ohio Turnpike.

After the Fassett’s opening in 1896, citizens were skeptical enough about its structural soundness that city leaders summoned a horse-drawn fire wagon and a couple of city firefighters and asked them to conduct a “speed test.” The fire teams crossed in 125 seconds, and the test also demonstrated to the public that the $214,000 bridge was safe to use.

Its riverbend location made it vulnerable to strong currents, wind, and ice. After ice carried away its center span in 1906, makeshift repairs were made, followed by additional work in 1928 and 1933 as traffic grew while ice issues persisted.

In 1935, high wind collapsed the Fassett Street Bridge — fortunately, with nobody on it at the time. The city and the Works Progress Administration spent a combined $399,000 to restore it. Yet by 1940, a five-ton load limit was slapped on it. Five years after that, engineers recommended it be shut down, but it wasn’t.

In 1946, a freighter strike closed the bridge for two months. Another closing occurred in 1954 when another ship hit it. The more devastating hit from the Champlain was almost a foregone conclusion.

Since then, the Fassett Street Bridge’s absence has left a railroad bridge just downstream from its location in a position to catch vessels blown off course by wind and river currents.

On a stormy night in November, 1992, before I had joined The Blade’s staff, I was traveling by train from Chicago to Springfield, Mass., when passengers were informed that a freighter had become lodged in an approach span of what was then Conrail’s bridge in Toledo.

Fortunately, it was reported at the time, the M.V. Algonorth had run aground in shallow water just as its bow nosed into the bridge — otherwise, the bridge might have come down. My train and another just ahead of it ended up taking a four-hour detour around the city’s west, north, and east sides to use a different bridge to cross the Maumee.

This was perhaps the most dire of several incidents involving that railroad bridge over the years. The most recent one reported that involved contact occurred in 2000, when the M.V. Cartierdoc grazed its protective fenders.

In 1999 and 2001, meanwhile, wind twice swept the M.V. Nanticoke off course — at least once occurring while it held position waiting for a train to cross — but it was kept from hitting the bridge by tugboats assisting it. In the later case, the current was so strong that additional tugs were summoned and worked for several days to restrain the grain-laden freighter until the river calmed down enough that it could be pushed back into a proper orientation to go through.

Neither of two other railroad bridges across the Maumee in Toledo has been reported hit in recent times.

None of the street or highway bridges that crosses the navigable portion of the Maumee is of a design similar to Baltimore’s Key Bridge. The I-280 Veterans’ Glass City Skyway has its central pylon in the middle of the river, but it is a much thicker structure than the Key Bridge pier that was hit, and also is shielded by the parallel Craig Memorial Bridge from being hit by any ship headed downstream that might stray off-course.

The Craig and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Bridges are multispan arch structures with drawspans whose narrow openings force ships to reduce speed to pass through them. The Anthony Wayne Bridge’s two suspension towers, meanwhile, are on land.