Newshub18:Before being swept away, the bridge ‘screamed’, the steel-hardness succumbing to the water
Local residents and members of the disaster response team could do nothing but watch helplessly. Floodwaters first overflowed the bridge in downtown Utuado. Once the entire steel bridge was swept away by the current. Hurricane Fiona made landfall in Puerto Rico last Sunday (September 18) with sustained winds of 140 kilometers per hour and heavy rain. 304 mm to 450 mm of rain fell in 24 hours almost all over the country, in some places it was more than 750 mm. In some places more than 900 mm of rain fell locally. And then the torrential flood started. As a result, many infrastructures in Puerto Rico, including the bridge, have been severely damaged.
Photojournalist Juan R. Costa took a video of the bridge being washed away. Sharing the video on Twitter, he said that the bridge was located on a national highway in Salto Arriba area of Utuado city. Looking at the video clip though, there is no highway, just a flowing river, no way to tell. The 24-second video clip shows the raging river rushing over the bridge. Later, one side of the bridge became detached from the highway. After one side was severed, it didn’t take long for the other side to open as well. Then under the pull of the current, the entire huge steel bridge floats away like a toyAnother video posted by Juan R. Costa showed how the thick iron cables holding the bridge snapped like twine before it was completely washed away. In the second video, the ‘crying’ of the bridge, i.e. the metallic sound of breaking steel is also heard