The mayor's office has become the communications center for the Red Cross, which is heading efforts to help families looking for relatives. Relief agencies have taken over a large portion of Webbers Falls' city hall, installing four new phone lines and putting out chairs and food for people who might come to the area looking for loved ones and awaiting news. Upstream from the crash site, volunteers are busy taking calls from people who are looking for missing relatives. Army Corps of Engineers, said Fort Gibson Lake is near flood-release stage, meaning officials will have to open the lake's floodgates and allow excess water to flow downstream.ĭivers said the current has abated some since Sunday, but a scheduled release for this afternoon could change that. Area reservoirs are filling up fast because of weekend downpours that continued Tuesday. Recent rains may add an additional obstacle to recovery efforts. The state Transportation Department provided the gravel. "Yesterday (Monday) we pulled a semi-trailer up, and it fell apart like a cardboard box."Īccess to the scene has been difficult, so the company built a temporary gravel access road to the riverbank. "Imagine bad, and this is double-bad," Inhofe said. He said the scene at Webbers Falls is beyond any calamity he's worked. His company has worked on train derailments and other transportation disasters. The items the workers are finding are strangely out of place - a running shoe, garden hoses and several dictionaries that were being hauled somewhere via truck before the collapse abruptly ended their trip.Īll debris is bagged and handed over to the Muskogee County sheriff's office.īill Inhofe, who owns Sooner Emergency Services, is no stranger to this kind of work. Floodlights mounted atop three poles are helping crews after nightfall. have been skimming the water's surface for debris while others scour the shoreline. Searchers with Tulsa-based Sooner Emergency Services Inc. Medical examiners take notes and photos of the wreckage, then leave it to firefighters to find bodies and belongings. "We know there's family members out there that are wondering, 'Is there one of my own in the water there?'" diver Dennis Splawn said.ĭivers identified wrecked cars by first looking for oil slicks on the surface, then going underneath.Īs vehicles are found, a large crane hoists them to the surface and puts them on the deck of another barge. Poor visibility underwater and the continued threat of bad weather have delayed progress.The divers say they're determined to finish the job. Frank Keating declared a state of emergency Tuesday, citing a threat to "the lives and property of the people of this state."Ī crew of four highway patrol divers continued to look for cars in the twisted wreckage and treacherous waters beneath the collapsed bridge. The crash toppled a 500-foot section of the highway into the water, causing several vehicles to fall 60 feet into the water. Officials said they believe the tugboat captain may have blacked out, causing the boat to stray from its proper navigation channel and hit the bridge. The bridge collapse occurred Sunday morning after a tugboat pushing two empty barges struck the bridge's support columns on the west side of the Arkansas River I-40 bridge at Webbers Falls. All the bodies recovered so far have been adults. In addition to the 13 bodies recovered, officials have pulled 10 vehicles from the river. Officials earlier confirmed the identity of Andrew Clements, 35, an Army soldier who died while traveling to Virginia from California. Wayne Martin, a Norman police detective, and his wife, Susan, both 49. Misty Johnson, 28, of Lavaca, Ark., and her husband, James Johnson, 30, of Lavaca, Ark.ĭivers are looking for the body of the couple's daughter, Shay Nicole Johnson, 3. Tuesday night, officials released the identities of five more victims: Green and Shanahan were traveling together in a pickup. Her husband, who was not identified, survived the crash and was rescued. Margaret Green, 45, of Stockdale, Texas and Gail Shanahan, 49, of Corpus Christi, Texas.Ĭawley, whose body was recovered Monday, was traveling with her husband in a pickup.
Officials confirmed the identities of three more crash victims - Jeanine Katherine Cawley, 58, of Lebanon, Ore. WEBBERS FALLS - Four more bodies and two more cars were pulled Tuesday from the Arkansas River, bringing the official death toll to 13 after Sunday's bridge collapse on Interstate 40.ĭivers from the Oklahoma Highway Patrol continued to feel through the murky waters of the river while other crews picked up crash site debris from the shoreline and the water.
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