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The North Bay Bridge is a suspension bridge in New York that collapsed on April 26, 1999[1] as a result of high winds and construction, killing 86 people, including 17 employees of Presage Paper. It is the earliest known major disaster of the series, as seen in Final Destination 5, and the second disaster chronologically, given William Bludworth's words[2].

Disaster

Premonition

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Death tampers with the bridge.

During a corporate retreat, qualified members of Presage Paper travel on Rolland Coach Line Bus 1282 on the North Bay Bridge. Meanwhile, high winds sway the bridge, causing one of its cables to be loosen, presumably done by Death itself. This creates a sudden jolt, which only Sam could feel. Construction workers further weaken the bridge when their machinery causes cracks to form along the surface and the bottom of the deck to break apart.

Sam sees that the bridge is starting to collapse and alerts his girlfriend Molly, his friend Peter and the rest of his colleagues to flee the bus immediately. Candice, Peter's girlfriend, runs to the railings on the right side of the bus. The road beneath her feet collapses and as she clings onto the railings, Candice calls Peter for help. Candice, however, falls off and is gruesomely impaled by the mast of a sailing yacht.

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The middle section of the bridge incoveniently collapses but Sam spots a beam that connects to the other side. Molly successfully crosses over it.

Sam tells a shocked Peter and Molly to leave the scene, as their bus hangs over the edge of the bridge. Isaac, after finishing his phone call in the bus's bathroom, is trapped in the bus, as it falls off. As the bus crashes into the bay below, Isaac is hurled to the windscreen and is killed on impact. The colleagues run away from the site where the bus collapsed and during the moment of chaos, a passer-by knocks Olivia's glasses off, temporarily blinding her. Sam and Molly then witness the middle section of the bridge collapse before them, leaving behind a beam which connects to the other side of the bridge. Sam instructs Molly to cross over the beam, which she successfully does. Olivia, after Sam sees her struggling, is instructed to cross over the beam as well. Meanwhile, Peter tries to reach to Sam but a streetlight falls onto the cars, almost killing him. Olivia is nervous and before she could hold onto Molly's hand, the bridge shakes, causing the beam to tilt backward. She slides off and falls into the bay. Olivia resurfaces but a red car falls off from Sam's side of the bridge and lands on top of her head, killing her. Nathan, and his boss Dennis, run towards Sam but a cable is loosened and violently swings Nathan's body away, blood splattering everywhere which shocks Dennis. Sam's side of the bridge then tilts over, causing many passers-by to fall into the bay to their deaths. Dennis clings onto the edge of the bridge but a truck, containing hot tar, topples over. The tar burns most of his flesh as Dennis falls off to his painful death.

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The North Bay Bridge is falling down.

As Sam's side of the bridge begins to collapse, Peter arrives and jumps onto the hanging railings. Sam does the same as the entirety of his side of the bridge collapses, killing everyone who remained. Peter and Sam cling onto the railings, but a truck on Molly's side of the bridge hangs over the edge. The truck contains iron bars and they are soon propelled into Peter's direction, impaling his left eye, abdomen and stomach. Peter's bloody corpse falls into the bay below as Molly desperately tries to reach to Sam. However, the truck hangs over the edge even further, prompting a large sheet of metal to slide out and bisect Sam's body. Molly screams in horror as Sam awakens from his terrifying premonition.

Real Life

After his premonition, Sam tells everyone that the bridge is going to collapse and brings Molly outside. Despite his colleagues questioning his paranoid behavior, they follow him. This includes Olivia, Nathan, Candice, Peter, Dennis and Isaac, whilst the rest of their colleagues remain in the bus.

Suddenly, high winds cause the bridge to tremble and one of its cables to be loosened. Dennis sees a large crack form on the road and tells everyone to get off the bus. Dennis, Olivia, Nathan, Candice, Peter and Isaac flee to a safe area, where Sam and Molly stayed. Then, they witness the bridge collapse, killing everyone, including those who stayed on the bus. After the bridge collapse, the survivors (which included a few passersby who were later not part of Death's list) look onto Sam, with horror and bewilderment at his ability to predict the tragedy.

Signs/Clues

  • The bus passes a sign that says "Danger: Construction", and a picture of a bridge. Part of the picture is scratched off, hinting the bridge collapse.
  • Sam, along with everyone else, watches a video about corporate retreats. The title of said video has 180 in it.
  • The logging truck on the road is from a company called "Tagert", making a nod to Tagert Theatres, which would be the second premonition had by Nick O'Bannon ten years after the bridge collapse (movie continuity).
  • The song Dust in the Wind plays on the bus.
  • The bus number is 1282. Adding the numbers with each other (1 + 2 + 8 + 2) equals 13, the number known to bring bad luck.
  • Sam sees a truck loaded with logs, a reference to the Route 23 disaster from the second movie.
  • At certain points of the bridge renovation, cracks are visible on the asphalt. The crack which started the collapse was the result of two simultaneous cracks created by two construction workers.
  • Before getting on the bus, Sam spots a sign reading "watch your step".
  • While on the bridge, a worker holds up a sign reading "slow".
  • While crossing the bridge, a construction beaker falls off the bridge, hits the concrete, and splashes into the water, foreshadowing Peter's fate during the collapse.
  • A dark shadow passes over Sam before he pricks his finger.
  • The strong winds, later said to have caused the disaster, shake the bus in a manner which only Sam can hear and feel.

Intended Survivors

Unintended Survivors

Casualties

Presage Paper employees

Others

Trivia

  • The North Bay Bridge is modeled after the real-life Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver, Canada. Filming location took place on the bridge, and the actors were filmed later at stunt stages. Editing was done to make it look like the bridge was really collapsing.
    • The collapse itself is loosely based on the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940, which was caused in part by high winds, but mainly due to poor construction, though no lives were lost, with the exception of a dog.
  • The reason that this disaster is never mentioned again during the franchise is because all the people who knew about its link to Death's list- namely Sam, Molly, Nathan, Peter, Dennis, Olivia, Isaac, Jim and Candice - had died. Everyone else, who wasn't associated with the list or investigating it, had believed this disaster to be a normal disaster; the only person who remained and knew about the link, was Bludworth. In contrast, most of the public believed Flight 180 was an act of terrorism, further drawing more attention to Alex Browning.
  • The newsreporter describes the survivors of the disaster as having an "uncertain future", alluding to their status on Death's list.
  • This is, so far, the third disaster in series (the first being Final Destination 2 and the second, The Final Destination) to show the characters making an attempt to escape from the disaster with exclusion to Final Destination and Final Destination 3, as no escape could have possibly been made from the event.
  • After when the survivors look at Sam in horror, If you look closely in the back, you can see a character that looks similar to Hunt from the 4th film.
  • The bridge collapse may be the earliest disaster seen in the film series, but according to William Bludworth, he has seen a similar disaster before, making the bridge collapse the second disaster to occur chronologically.

References

  1. There is a major inconsistency where the events of Final Destination are initially shown to have occurred in 1999, even though Final Destination 5 later portrays it as having taken place the following year. For the purposes of the wiki, the events of this film took place in 1999.
  2. Bludworth mentions in Final Destination 5 that he's "seen this before", meaning there is at least one disaster that occurred prior to the North Bay Bridge collapse.
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