CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) – Engineers say a large section of Wyoming highway where four Colorado family members plunged to their deaths may have totally collapsed in a matter of minutes.
Bruce Burrows of the Wyoming Transportation Department says engineers are studying what happened to state Route 130 over South Brush Creek early Tuesday morning.
He says preliminary assessments indicate the creek swollen with rain and snowmelt may have undermined the roadway over some hours and then gouged a 25-foot-wide, 9-foot-deep hole in a matter of minutes.
A family from Colorado Springs fleeing a nearby campground plunged into the gaping hole and was swept downstream, killing a woman and her three young daughters.
Their husband and father, Alex Constantinides, was the only member of the family to survive.
