Missing span
Arial view facing south of the mouth of Wailuku River after the tsunami. The railroad bridge is in the foreground, with the east span missing. These two remaining spans are now a deck truss bridge over Kolekole creek and park. The concrete arch brige on Puueo and Keawe is visible in the background
Photo taken by Orville T. Magoon, NOAA/NGDC, 1946 April. Edited by Fmiser, 2013
View this photo at ngdc.noaa.gov
BH Photo #246845
Hilo Railroad built a concrete bent trestle bridge here. In 1916 when Hilo Railroad reorganized as Hawaii Consolidated Railway. This three span riveted Warren truss bridge was built after ten of the trestle bridge bents collapsed in 1923. HCR used the line until it filed for abandonment shortly after the April 1946 tsunami. All assests, including right-of-way, bridges, buildings, and running stock was sold as salvage to Gilmore Steel and Supply Company.
Two years later, Hawaii Territory bought the remaining bridges and the right-of-way. Hawaii Belt Road largely follows the old railroad alignment, including this river crossing. A steel stringer bridge was built to replace the damaged Warren truss bridge for the crossing of Wailuku River.
But the two truss spans that survived the tsunami were not scrapped. They were floated up the coast on barges and lifted into place as a deck truss to replaced the damaged steel trestle crossing Kolekole Creek.
http://bridgehunter.com/hi/hawaii/kolekole-park
70 years and 4 days ago this bridge was destroyed and many over 150 lives lost when on April 1'st the Aleutian Islands Earthquake struck creating a tsunami that devastated the Alaskan and Hawaiian coasts. However where a dark cloud is a silver lining exists and this ones silver lining was good.
After the tsunami a new warning system was put in place so that a disaster of this magnitude never happened again.
R.I.P.