Just got back from San Diego, where I heard an intriguing tale from my cab driver. It goes like this: The Coronado Bay bridge, a huge structure that spans the bay where the Navy has lots of ships docked, is designed so that the large sections will float if they ever fall into the bay. The idea is that if an enemy blew up the bridge and it fell into the bay, all the ships on one side of the bridge would be trapped there by the debris. Since that side of the bay is a carrier turnaround basin, they could even trap a carrier back there. So to avoid that problem, the bridge was designed so that its sections would float and a ship could push them aside to open the bay again.
This sounds plausible, though I still wonder how well the sections would float after an explosion. And if you’ve ever seen the bay, it seems likely that the bridge would indeed trap a lot of big war ships if it came down. But cabbies angling for a good tip aren’t necessarily a good source, so I’m wondering if anyone else has the straight dope.
I’ve never seen a modern carrier go under the San Diego bay bridge to the 32nd street naval station. We sould always dock at NAS North Island on the North half of Coronado.
Almost certainly an Urban Legend. This site give details on the construction of the bridge. The navy, I believe, did object to the Coronodo Bridge at one time. It was built anyway without all that much navy opposition.
The sites listed elsewhere both seem to be travelogues. I realize that the lack of mention in the caltrans site I referenced doesn’t prove the sections won’t float. I do imagine, though, that if the story were factual some hint of it would have been in the bridge description in the site.