Into the Darkness: Minneapolis tragedy stirs painful memories of a cold night in 1975

SILOAM (Winston-Salem Journal) - Thomas Needham tries not to remember that foggy night Feb. 23, 1975, when he was driving his wife and two girls home across the rain-swollen Yadkin River in Surry County.

He felt a familiar dip as he approached the wooden floor of the one-lane bridge. Then, there was silence. Suddenly, there was nothing but air beneath the wheels of his pickup, and the family was thrown upside down as the cab smashed into the twisted steel below what had been the Siloam Bridge.

Needham was able to get out with his daughter Tessa, 8. But, his wife, Judy, could not escape as the water rose over the pickup. She was holding their 3-year-old daughter, Andrea Lee.