BALTIMORE — While we look at the wreckage of the Key Bridge, others remember what it was and what it took to put it across the outer harbor.
"I never imagined in my wildest dreams that the bridge would come down because I know how strong it was built,” said Terry Turbin.
It's been a week of reflection for Turbin. He was part of the construction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, a monumental piece to his life.
"I got to thinking isn't that amazing that here I worked on a bridge that was dedicated to a man that wrote the Star Spangled Banner and now it's gone, and I never thought for 47 years much about that but now it's hitting me,” said Turbin.
Turbin was just 23-years-old. On the back end of the great recession, he said unemployment was at an all-time high.
“There were people that were just wanting to get a job any way they could so the Union Hall had a lot of men there waiting for the business agents to come in and provide us with what was available,” said Turbin.
That's when he was presented with an opening on the Key Bridge. "And so I took the job because it was eight dollars and ten cents an hour which in 1975, that was good,”Turbin explained.
He worked on the base of the bridge. Turbin said, "I worked on the one dolphin that was out on the Dundalk side and they are those concrete round things you see, there is four of them they really kind of line up the channel so that a ship can get in there and stay where they need to stay.”
Working on the barge was a dangerous job."You got to imagine working on a platform that is rocking and rolling with the currents and in the early part of 75, it was the winter time so it was bitter cold, it was slippery, there was a lot of things you had to watch out for,” said Turbin.
The bridge was completed in 1977 but it wasn't designed to take a direct hit from a ship. Turbin said they followed the engineers designs and looking at the collapse, you can see that.
"The pier that we worked on is still standing but if you notice, all that steel that was above that pier came down around it but it's still standing,” said Turbin. “You see our job to provide a foundation, we were thorough in that.”
Back then it was just a job, he now has a new perspective. "For me it was a reflection to see that what we do with our life does indeed count even when we think it's insignificant,” said Turbin.
A piece of him was in the old bridge, now he'd like to be part of the rebuild.
"Because I had a part in the first bridge I would like for the company that does the reconstruction to hire me for one day and they can give me an easy job, maybe not on the barge,” said Turbin.
Gone but not forgotten. While he hasn't gone to see what the bridge looks like now, it is a story he's proud to pass along his family.
