Viking_Yearbook_94

Wednesday, Sept. 22, 1993 Saraland, Alabama Associated Press A n Amtrak train hurtled off a bridge into a bayou, early in the morning, plunging its sleeping passengers into a nightmare of fire, water and death. A barge had struck and weakened the bridge shortly before the wreck, which killed 47 people aboard the cross-country train. Some of the victims were trapped in a submerged, silver passenger car, others in a burned engine. It was the deadliest wreck in Amtrak's 23-year history. 159 people survived, and some helped other passengers who clung to wreckage from a collapsed section of the bridge in a swamp crawling with alligators and snakes. The Los Angeles-to-Miami Amtrak train crashed at about 3 A.M., about 10 miles north of downtown Mobile. All three engines and four of the eight cars went off the bridge. Two of the cars were passenger cars; one was completely submerged in water about 16 feet deep. Another passenger car dangled perilously off of the bridge. "We were asleep and the next thing you know we were in the water," said passenger Bob Watts. "I thought it was a dream."