'In the summer months we're on the water, we're making sure that everybody is operating the way they should be and not endangering lives,' he said.Ī total of 14 people died and 11 people were injured. Mostly, the career had been about water safety, checking people on their personal boats. The patrol vehicle approached the rebuilt bridge. 'Water was kind of my deal so that is where I stayed,' Copeland said. Tucker had also responded to the bridge 20 years ago and said he recalls during the investigation he interviewed a man who had escaped a submerged vehicle and swam to the surface.Ĭopeland had joined the Oklahoma Lake Patrol in 1997 and worked in marine enforcement for 25 years. Damon Tucker across the flatlands a few miles north of I-40. This aerial view is looking west.Ĭopeland rode in a patrol vehicle with Capt. It's not what you're expecting to see, but we had a job to do and my job was to get onboard that tugboat and see what our situation was.'Ī piece of the I-40 bridge over the Arkansas River near Webbers Falls, Okla., rests on a barge that collided with the bridge Sunday morning, May 26, 2002. 'Once we got the boat on the water and we actually unloaded the boat in the Illinois River above stream of the Arkansas River and turned left, I was shocked to see what in my mind was 50 to 60 feet, according to dispatch, that was gone and it was more like 400 to 500 feet of the bridge,' Copeland said. 'It's breathtaking. A bass tournament had been underway, and when Copeland got in the boat, the fishermen were rescuing victims.Ī patrol boat was waiting at a dock on the Illinois River, where it feeds into the Arkansas River, to take Copeland to the barge that struck the bridge. The water was swift and rain-swollen from overnight showers. The Arkansas River is as wide at Webbers Falls as any place in Oklahoma, a state where river traffic ends for barges.

Dispatchers reported a section of the bridge was gone, but not as much as he found – nearly 600 feet was missing. The traffic was backing up for miles on I-40, there was no confusion as to which bridge was down when he got out of the vehicle. 'You have to remember, this was just seven to eight months after the 9/11 so there were a lot of things going through my mind when responding to this incident because you have to think, 'Could this have been a terroristic situation? What are we dealing with when we get there?' And so, as a first responder, those are the things that are running through your head when you are responding to an incident, especially since something like 9/11 was still fresh.'

The thought rushed through his mind that maybe two bridges had been taken out and it was a terrorist attack. 64 bridge, both over the Arkansas River at Webbers Falls and about one mile apart. 11, 2001, and some of the early reports he heard from dispatchers over scanner traffic aired some confusion as to which bridge had been hit, the I-40 bridge or the U.S. It was only nine months after the terrorist attacks in New York City and at the Pentagon on Sept. He would be the first OHP trooper to see the horror at the bridge and in the water. on that Sunday, May 26, the day before Memorial Day, when the telephone rang. Usually, he was busiest in the summer months, and of course, on holiday weekends such as Memorial Day. He'd been a trooper for five years and had worked his share of drownings, fatal boating accidents and other incidents on the state's lakes and rivers. Gone but not forgotten: Former mayor to host memorial in honor of Webbers Falls bridge tragedy

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