Port Authority planners considered tearing down the bridge and replacing it with a tunnel or a new, higher bridge.
"The biggest complaint I hear is that we took down the bridge," said Lt. Col. Nick Marano, commander of the Marine battalion here.
The Uzbek government shut down the bridge in May 1997, when the Taliban first chased the Northern Alliance out of Mazar-i-Sharif.
"I never even knew we had the thing until this certified letter arrived telling us to tear down the bridge," Ms. Fayad added.
But north of there, water still cut off most roads to Long Beach Island; in Ocean County, wreckage from homes pushed out to sea in the storm had shut down the bridge at Mantoloking.
They've cut down the bridge behind them (correct, finally some sense) and are into the relative safety of a cave, but then Pasiphae collapses the cave entrance, just with a look.
Below the sign stood candles and flowers; farther down, the bridge was coated with a layer of shattered bottles, flattened cigarette packs and graffiti, left behind by the young people who gather here on many nights, above the cars and away from parental or police supervision.
Horatius Cocles, Roman hero traditionally of the late 6th century bc but perhaps legendary, who first with two companions and finally alone defended the Sublician bridge (in Rome) against Lars Porsena and the entire Etruscan army, thereby giving the Romans time to cut down the bridge.
"I am hoping that all those who watched a middle-aged person jumping down the bridge and coming back up smiling will be encouraged not just to jump but also to come and visit Zambia," Mr Lubinda said.
"One man, yes, one man, in hardly any time at all, turned back the course of Israeli history -- shut down the bridge-building with the Palestinians, froze the warming relations with the moderate Arab world, left Jordan and Egypt embarrassed about having made peace with us".
City of London Police officers were alerted to reports of a suspect package at around 5pm, and locked-down the bridge in order to investigate the area.
