Cape sees blast of tourism

Oh, what a difference a bridge makes -- even a damaged one.

The recent demolition of the old Mississippi River bridge at Cape Girardeau has been a boost to local tourism.

People have flocked to the riverfront to see a series of explosions designed to bring down the old bridge.

You can find that same look in San Francisco where Giants fans look in awe at the exploits of slugger Barry Bonds.

Of course, we don't have professional baseball. But we do have a blown-up bridge.

And thanks to the demolition contractor and the Missouri Department of Transportation, we now have an extended tourist attraction.

On Sept. 9, hundreds of explosive charges cut through part of the steel span, dropping it into the river as planned. But the blast also shook apart the remaining two spans, collapsing pieces of those spans into the river.

As the smoke was clearing, spectators were treated to a landscape of wreckage that resembled the backdrop of a disaster movie.

The city's Convention and Visitors Bureau couldn't buy this kind of publicity. Photographs of the bridge wreckage appeared on television and in newspapers across the country.

Even today, much of the wreckage still remains in the river. That's good news for the tourism industry. It means visitors will continue to flock to the river for a view of the destruction.

Last weekend, my wife's relatives drove down from St. Louis. Naturally, we had to give them a tour of Cape Girardeau's scenic downtown. Of course, this included a visit to the river side of the floodwall and an unobstructed view of the damaged bridge.

It wouldn't be nearly as interesting a tourist site if the bridge spans hadn't come down at one time and the wreckage wasn't still sticking out of the water like a beached whale.

If CVB officials are astute, they'll urge MoDOT and the contractor to go slowly on removing the wreckage.

Right now, it's a conversation piece. It's a unique reason to visit the river city.

It's better than the demolition derby at the fair. That lasts only a few hours. The bridge destruction has been visible for weeks.

Our family watched barges being pushed south by a towboat. We took turns predicting if it would run into the old bridge. It didn't even though from our perspective on shore it looked like a disaster was in the making.

This kind of public viewing can't be found in other cities.

Tourists are used to visiting theme parks, beaches, historic homes, zoos and sporting events. But seldom can tourists count on seeing singular destruction on a sunny day without being in the middle of a minefield.

The city's new tourism slogan is "Where the River Turns A Thousand Tales." Maybe the CVB should consider changing the slogan to "Cape Girardeau: Where We Know How to Have a Blast."

Personally, I'm going to be sorry to see the old wreck go.

But local tourism officials shouldn't wait until the steel wreckage is gone. The CVB needs to be proactive and start planning now for what we should blow up next.

With any luck, we could continue to draw blast-happy tourists to our city for years to come.

Clearly, there's no better way to get a charge out of tourism.

Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.