It’s like a belt across the waist of Franklin County and 25 years ago today, the buckle burst after being fed more than it could hold.

It was just after 6 a.m. Wednesday morning April 1, 1987. David Currier, 31, was heading south across the bridge in his 1972 Subaru Hatchback. His car was shaking, but Currier didn’t think to attribute the trembling to a problem with the bridge. After all, despite widespread flooding, the river was still flowing under the bridge. He instead figures his car must have a flat tire. So as soon as he makes it across the final span, he pulls over and stops. He turns his head and immediately realizes the bumpy ride has nothing to do with the condition of his car.

What happens next is recalled by Currier in a recent interview with this columnist:

“The north side of the bridge had already started to separate and go down. It made quite a water wave. Then the middle section dropped just after the first section on the north side.”

“ The first piece just sit there just floated like it was floating on top of the water. Then it went out like that and the north side rolled. You could see the arches roll over into the water. The other one [the middle section] swung out and headed south and just floated out, you couldn’t see the arches, or anything. Just gone. It was all in a matter of three or four minutes.”

Currier remained on the scene warning the many approaching motorists of the bridge’s collapse.

It was perhaps fitting that Currier would, in effect, administer the last rites to the historic structure, since the bridge was once unofficially named for his cousin, Currier Holman, a legislator who promoted building the bridge back in 1930.

Loss of the Fairbanks Bridge, replaced nearly 18 months later at a cost of some $3 million, was one of the more memorable casualties of one of the worst floods in Central Maine history.

Currier’s near rendezvous with death also played out in dozens of other episodes throughout Central Maine in this time. Just eight miles to the south, two members of the Farmington Falls Fire Department were soon clinging to life. They were Junior Turner and Nelson Collins. The same Sandy River current that sank the Fairbanks Bridge also split in half the motorboat Turner and Collins were using to help rescue a marooned homeowner.

As Turner recalled for this columnist a few days ago:

“Though the river was smooth. It’s unbelievable how rugged the current was. We were no match for it. The current blew our firemen’s boots right off. We were in freezing water for nearly an hour. If we hadn’t taken enough rope, we would have gone down the river.”

It took two skidders operated by three of  fire department colleagues, Dennis Butterfield, Steve Webber and Ross Clair, to reach them. They were rescued just before the onset of some of the more serious symptoms of hypothermia.

It was at Farmington Falls that the 1987 flood had many other serious ramifications. The entire village was isolated, a home was demolished in an explosion caused by the rupture of a propane gas line. Others were virtually ruined from other flood related mishaps.

Paul H. Mills is a Farmington attorney well known for his analyses and historical understanding of Maine’s political scene. He can be reached by e-mail: [email protected]