riverrun
e v i at e r o ssu m e rI m e m ast o C Dis
Vol. 130 No. 3 Fall / Winter 1996
RAMMED!
Runaway freighter demolishes River Bend Mall
First
came the emergency siren wailing the distress alarm of the Bright Day, a 78,000-ton freighter laden with Christmas goods from China, as its engines lost power and it began drifting toward the River Bend waterfront. Then came a “terrifying” sound of grating concrete and shrieking metal as the ship made contact. Fifteen shops and restaurants were all but eliminated, along with portions of the Hilton Hotel, as the ship plowed into the River Bend Mall, injuring scores of holiday shoppers and sending hundreds more into pandemonium while cutting a 160foot swath through wharf, stores, and restaurants, including the late, great, Café Mauve. In the grand ballroom of the hotel, citizens had gathered to view models of the three proposed tax initiatives: the 21st Century Library,
the Magnolia, and the Panopticon. Voting had already begun and bursting ballot boxes provided no small part of the cloud of white fragments swirling in the drifting snow and white powder that engulfed the scene.
“Like a tractor plowing through dirt” By dropping two anchors, the Bright Day’s captain narrowly avoided the cruise ships docked along the wharf. But the leviathan’s momentum carried its other end in a wide arc like a slow-motion movie as the freighter’s bow slammed into the mall, shearing off buildings like that scene in Airport Continued on page 4.
November 8, 1996: River Bend, Iowa
Tugboats stabilize the Bright Day against what remains of the River Bend Mall. Photograph Copyright © 1996 by River Bend Forward-Progress.