Kent Holcomb: Truck driver stuck on Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel during extreme weather

Kent Holcomb, a truck driver from Hampton Roads, was left stranded on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel in Virginia on Thursday afternoon after harsh thunderstorms forced the closure of the bridge.

Trapped in the middle of the 37-km long structure, Kent Holcomb took out his cell phone and started filming as his big rig was rocked back and forth by the strong winds.

Wisely Kent Holcomb didn’t leave his vehicle, but his footage clearly shows the extreme weather conditions including waves crashing against the sides of the bridge.

“I’ve never been so scared in my life. They closed the bridge, and I’m stuck in the middle of it,” Kent Holcomb said on the video.

“You can see by my cord, just how bad this truck is rocking… I’m going to need a drink after this.”

The bridge tunnel is a fixed link crossing the mouth of Chesapeake Bay and connects the Delmarva Peninsula’s Eastern Shore of Virginia with Virginia Beach and the metropolitan area of Hampton Roads, Virginia.

Kent Holcomb was heading home to Hampton Roads from Rhode Island when he ran into the bad weather.

High winds forced crews to close the 23-mile-long bridge tunnel.

“I thought I was going to be able to beat it – and I guess the bridge people thought that too – but that wasn’t the case,” Kent Holcomb told WTKR.

The bridge-tunnel originally combined 19 km of trestle, two 1.6 km long tunnels, four artificial islands, two high-level bridges, approximately 3.2 km of causeway, and 8.9 km of approach roads – crossing the Chesapeake Bay and preserving traffic on the Thimble Shoals and Chesapeake shipping channels.

It replaced vehicle ferry services which operated from South Hampton Roads and from the Virginia Peninsula from the 1930s until completion of the bridge–tunnel in 1964.

The system remains one of only ten bridge-tunnel systems in the world, three of which are located in Hampton Roads, Virginia.