Train No. 99 was a Chesapeake and Ohio freight running west from Hinton, West Virginia, to Russell, Kentucky, along the main C&O line that traced the Ohio River corridor. The locomotive at the head was No. 820, a Mikado (2-8-2 wheel arrangement) - the modern heavy freight power of its era, capable of pulling substantial tonnage through Appalachian terrain. The crew followed the standard arrangement of the period: engineer, fireman, and brakemen distributed front and rear. Webber was in the cab. His fireman and front brakeman had been instructed to walk across the bridge ahead of the locomotive to verify that the work crew had cleared the span and to receive any final instructions. The redundant safety procedure ought to have prevented exactly what happened.

The Guyandotte River bridge was undergoing structural repairs in early January 1913. A crew was actively working on the structure that morning, unloading materials for the next phase of work. A flagman was protecting the work zone, stopping incoming trains and authorizing them to proceed when the work area was clear. The repairs had not closed the bridge entirely; the C&O had kept it open under traffic for several days because doing so was operationally important. The line was a critical artery for coal moving from the mines to the river ports, and bridge closures meant detours and delays. The decision to keep operating under repair conditions reflected normal railroad practice of the era but also normal railroad risk of the era - which the morning of January 1 would make tragically clear.

When the flagman gave Webber the signal to cross, Webber moved No. 820 onto the bridge at a slow speed. The locomotive reached the middle of the structure. The center span gave way. Engine, tender, and structural debris fell together into the Guyandotte River. Thirteen bridge workers who had been on the span when the locomotive crossed went down with it. Webber was killed. Six bridge workers died with him: J. W. Crawford, Charles Maddy, Emmett Wood, Henry White, Charles Coyner, and J. G. Wheeler. The other seven bridge workers were rescued from the water. The collapse was so sudden that none of those who died on the bridge could have moved to safety. Maddy's body was found fifty miles downstream near Portsmouth, Ohio, days later.

Word spread quickly. Thousands of people lined the banks of the Guyandotte River as rescue efforts went on through the day. Bodies were pulled from the cold January water as they were found. Webber, Crawford, Wood, and eventually Maddy were recovered. The remains of White, Coyner, and Wheeler were lost - never found in the river, despite extensive searches. The C&O could not raise the locomotive itself until June 1913, six months after the collapse. The salvage operation required specialized equipment to bring No. 820 up from the riverbed. The bridge was rebuilt. The line returned to service. But the morning of January 1 marked seven funerals in the towns along the C&O - working families who lost husbands, fathers, and sons in an accident that better engineering and stricter operational discipline might have prevented.

The Guyandotte River runs from southern West Virginia north to its confluence with the Ohio River at the historic Guyandotte neighborhood of Huntington. The site of the 1913 bridge collapse lies near where the river crossing approaches the Ohio. The rebuilt bridge has been replaced multiple times since 1913, and current CSX freight operations along this stretch use modern structures meeting modern engineering standards. From the air, the Guyandotte River is identifiable as a smaller tributary entering the Ohio from the south, with the railroad bridge crossing it just upstream from the confluence. No formal monument marks the wreck site. The accident lives in railroad history archives, in the memories of descendants, and in occasional newspaper recollections of the day Engineer Shorty Webber went into the river along with six men he had never met.