DADE CITY, Fla. — Seeing Baltimore’s Key Bridge collapse on Tuesday morning, Joel Rogers Senior is reliving what he experienced 44 years ago when he was only 19.
“It's like right now I get the shakes off of that. I get sweaty. I try not to watch it. I try not to watch it. It takes me back. It takes me back.”
Joel was a young DJ driving back home to Sarasota on that foggy May morning in 1980.
He says that as he went over the Skyway Bridge, he saw the freighter, felt the jolt when it hit, and then witnessed the bridge collapse.
“Imagine seeing that in your rear-view mirror like it was off watching a movie. But it wasn’t a movie. It was actually reality,” he recalled.
Joel says he saw cars fall into the water along with the Greyhound bus he had passed just moments earlier.
He described what it was like feeling helpless in that situation, “It’s like you want to do something but you can’t do anything.” Joel says he did get out of his car and wave at others to stop.
He stayed there for a couple of hours, watching the rescue efforts and crying.
35 people died that morning.
“I just kept saying. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.”
Joel says he was lucky enough to be speeding a bit that morning and maybe that’s what saved him.
All these years later, he is proud of his large family and still has a passion for music.
And while he got over his fear of bridges long ago, he will never forget what he witnessed.
