'Bridge out' sign might be effective

Truckers dealing with construction on Indiana 26 in Portland have had their share of headaches.
But it’s nothing compared to what a guy named Robert Loy experienced on that same route back in 1940.
Inveterate archivist Janice Stuckey recently shared Loy’s story after coming across it in old newspaper files at Jay County Historical Society.
Loy was 22 at the time and had been living in Muncie. But his roots were in Jay County. His father, Perry Loy, lived in Noble Township, which has been the home of the Loy family for generations.
One Saturday night in early December of 1940, he decided to stay with his folks in Noble Township. He worked weekends for his uncle Dick Loy at a service station at Arch and Meridian streets in Portland. So it made sense to borrow a 1930 Chevrolet coupe from his uncle after work on Saturday and drive it back into town on Sunday morning.
He was heading west on Indiana 26 and approaching the city limits. A semi with a heavy load was behind him about an eighth of a mile. It was about 7 a.m., and it was dark. The road was ice-covered and hazardous.
But it wasn’t the road that ruined his morning.
It was the bridge.
As Loy’s coupe made its way across the 54-year-old span, it suddenly buckled and gave way, sending the car into the Salamonie River.
The trucker following behind saw the car’s lights simply drop out of sight.
Remarkably, Loy suffered nothing more than a bad bruising after the car dropped 25 feet to the river bed.
“The road was slippery with ice and I was driving slowly — not more than 25 miles an hour — when I approached the bridge,” Loy told The Commercial Review. “I remember driving onto it but I don’t know now how far across I was when there was a loud noise and the right, or north, side of the bridge seemed to heave. Then the car began whirling. After that, I don’t recall anything until I found myself on the bridge floor right over the water with my right arm under the right rear wheel of the car. … The car door was open and I knew I’d been thrown out.”
To his credit, Loy’s first thought was of others who might follow him into the river. He crawled up the bank and went looking for a telephone so he could call police.
The truck driver who had been following Loy stopped immediately and halted traffic from the east.
City engineers later said that a single rusted bolt gave way, causing the bridge — which dated from 1886 — to collapse.
And in a side note — the kind that historians like Janice always enjoy — the newspaper said older Jay County residents referred to the bridge as “the Lyons bridge” because a man by the name of Mart Lyons had once had a log cabin home near the site on property now owned by Rob and Mindy Weaver.
Now, as far as I know, the current bridge is in great shape.
But maybe if we added “Bridge Out” signs to the countless “Road Closed” signs already in place perhaps folks would get the message and obey the official detour.