Natasha McKnight had put wedding off two weeks, wondered if she would make it today
Terrence Hahn delayed on way to his wedding
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A couple was delayed for their own wedding.
They and their wedding party were on their way to Talbot Island, but they were stopped short when downed power lines closed the Sister's Creek Bridge on Heckscher Drive.
An electric line on a telephone pole snapped off when bad weather came through. The line draped over the light poles on the drawbridge, and fell onto the edge of the roadway.
Richard Chester was fishing under the drawbridge.
"It felt like 50-60 mile per hour winds," said Chester. "Me and my friend wondered if a tornado was coming through. We saw the rain coming and then the wind blew. All of a sudden we heard a loud pop and next thing I knew, the bell started going off. The bell kept going off and the bridge didn't raise."
Chester went up on the bridge, waived down an off duty officer on the east end who stopped traffic. Chester ran to the west end to stop the cars and avoid what he thought was a live power line.
Gerri Boyce of the JEA says the electricity usually trips when a line falls so it was likely not a live power line.
"I was telling everybody you got to stop, you don't want to go through there. I was turning everybody around," said Chester.
He said a man who lives nearby had just gone to the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and gave him some chicken nuggets for doing what he called a "good deed."
Cars quickly began to line up. The wedding party of 25 - 30 people was stuck in the traffic.
Terrence Hahn -- the groom -- and his fiancee Natasha McKnight were in separate cars.
"I am getting really nervous, wondering if this is going to happen today," said McKnight, the bride. "I am just wondering if we are going to get there and get this going and get it over with."
McKnight says she had already put the wedding off for two weeks when her sister had a baby. She was anxious.
"Very bittersweet," said Hahn. It had already been a very rough day for McKnight's fiancee. He lost his mother to cancer this very morning.
But Hahn wasn't anxious; he was as cool as a cucumber. He said he was happy to be marrying his best friend.
"Just a little glitch in it, for the rest of our lives we'll be together so we can wait 20 minutes to get the bridge fixed."
A JEA crew had to bring in a 100 foot bucket truck to make repairs which took about six hours. One lane of the bridge was open to allow traffic through around 6:30 p.m. allowing the wedding party to head to Talbot Island to tie the knot.
First Coast News