It was overshadowed by the tragedies of 9.11, but to the people of Port Isabel and South Padre Island, the collapse of the Queen Isabella Causeway on 9.15.01 was every bit a tragedy.
SOUTH PADRE ISLAND -- A name is engraved on each of the eight sides of the granite memorial to victims of the Queen Isabella Causeway collapse a year ago. Likewise the three stone benches, each for someone who somehow survived an 80-foot plunge.
They are accompanied by small sayings or pictures: A fireman's hat for Port Isabel Fire Chief Robert Harris. A marlin for Whataburger manager-in-training Gaspar Hinojosa. A cell phone for Hector Martinez; praying hands for Julio Mireles. For Chealsa Welch, a Madonna and child.
About 2:10 a.m. Sept. 15, 2001, 23-year-old Welch was returning from an evening on the island with her husband, 53-year-old "Harpoon" Barry Welch, a legend among local surfers for his uncanny ability to master the occasional Gulf Coast swell despite an artificial leg.
The headlights on their sport-utility vehicle only would have shown the road's slope upward, to the bridge's high point. Only when they were in midair and the lights probed blackness would the couple have realized that the bridge was no longer there.
Rene Mata, 28, realized when he felt the front tires go over. A split second before, his friend Robin Leavell screamed -- "The bridge!" -- from the passenger seat. He hit the brakes.
"It took forever," he remembers. "It was like in slow motion. You kind of had to brake for the impact. We hit, and everything's pitch black. Couldn't see anything. Couldn't wake her up. Couldn't get the seat belt. I felt something warm running down my head and realized I had a gash on my head."
He remembers fishermen and lights and a helicopter. For the next week, he would be in a hospital, mostly blacked out....
Only four days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the first reaction to the gaping hole and subsequent swarm of Coast Guard and law enforcement officers was that terrorists had targeted the Gulf Coast Intracoastal Waterway extending from Florida to Brownsville, an important fuel route.
Eventually, it became clear that the Brown Water V tow boat pushing three barges of steel coil and one of phosphate had lost control of the chain. The head barge struck a bridge support, and the causeway's midsection tumbled into the water below.
Eight people died.
That anyone survived a plunge like that is miracle enough. That only eight people died is equally miraculous. Yesterday's anniversary was a fitting tribute to those who died horrific deaths in the middle of the night.
