Driving along ... and the roadway vanishes beneath you. What's it like to survive a bridge collapse?

You're driving along, and without warning, the roadway drops from beneath you.

There are a few seconds of falling, with thoughts possibly racing about family or loved ones, followed by a jarring impact, and most likely injury.

Tuesday's collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore following a ship strike brought back jarring memories of their own ordeals to people who survived previous bridge collapses.

Linda Paul, 72, survived a bridge collapse in Minneapolis on Aug. 1, 2007. The Interstate 35W bridge collapsed without warning into the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis during the evening rush hour.

Paul was 55 then, working as a shop-at-home designer for a local company and driving home in a minivan that doubled as a “store on wheels,” loaded with fabrics and sample books. Traffic was at a total standstill, leaving her stuck on the bridge around 6 p.m.

“I remember looking around and thinking that there was definitely something wrong,” Paul said. “I looked ahead and realized that the center section of the bridge was going down, and knew at that point that there was a good chance I would go down with it. And that is exactly what happened.”

Police later told her that she plunged down a 50-foot (15-meter) slope as the concrete deck of the bridge collapsed. She was still inside the minivan as it fell onto wreckage on the riverbank.

Chunks of concrete hit her, fracturing five of her vertebrae and crushing her left cheekbone, as the collapse killed 13 people and injured 145.

Jessie Shelton, now a 35-year-old Broadway actor and voiceover artist in New York, was 18 when she survived the Minnesota bridge collapse. She had been driving from work to a production she was part of at Children’s Theater in Minneapolis.

“I started to slide backwards. And it was kind of, like, jolty,” she said. "I felt like I was on some sort of amusement park ride. And I remember thinking at 18 years of age, ‘Well, we’ll see what happens.’”

Then she was knocked unconscious, suffering a concussion and injuries that broke her back in four spots.

“I just remember that sort of final moment before I got a concussion,” Shelton said. “I don’t recall what came after. I woke up at North Memorial Hospital with either my mom or my best friend standing over me.”

“I had a big cement block in the backseat of my car," she recalled. "It narrowly missed me. It came off of one of the signs, I think, up above. So it really was pretty miraculous that I made it because I couldn’t have navigated out of that situation, because I was out cold.”

Gustavo Morales Jr. was driving a truck over the Queen Isabella Causeway in Port Isabel, Texas and fell into an abyss after a tugboat struck a pillar, sending part of the bridge into the water on Sept. 15, 2001.

Morales was on his way home from a late night managing a restaurant on South Padre Island at the time. He remembers it feeling like a rumble or explosion — and then his pickup truck flew over the collapsed roadway for a few seconds before crashing into the water. Thoughts of his wife, who was expecting their third child, flooded his mind.

“Everything comes into your mind a thousand miles an hour," he said. “It was my wife, my girls, my son who was on his way.”

Morales believes wearing his seatbelt and being able to manually roll down the window helped him stay conscious and escape the truck. He spent about ten minutes in the water before some young men nearby who witnessed the tugboat hit the pier helped him and others safely out. Eight people died that day. Morales was among three survivors.

Garrett Ebling, another survivor of the 2007 Minnesota bridge collapse, was numb when he learned that six people who were on the bridge in Baltimore remained missing and were presumed dead.

“As Minneapolis bridge collapse survivors, one of the things we hold onto is that we went through this in the hopes that people wouldn’t have to go through something like this in the future,” Ebling said.

Ebling, 49, of New Ulm, Minnesota, endured multiple surgeries, including facial reconstruction, as well as emotional trauma.

“We don’t know what happened in Baltimore,” Ebling said. “But I don’t want to see somebody have to go through that, especially unnecessarily. If it ends up being a preventable accident then I really feel bad. In my estimation, what happened in Minneapolis was a preventable bridge collapse. And if that also happened in Baltimore, then I think that makes it even more disappointing.”

Ahmed reported from Minneapolis and Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas. Associated Press writers Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia, and Wayne Parry in Atlantic City, New Jersey, also contributed to this story.

A gold pin in the shape of Minnesota – with the words "Interstate 35W 'Bridge' Remembering August 1, 2007" – is photographed on Linda Paul in St. Paul, Minn., on March 27, 2024. She survived the Interstate 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis on Aug. 1, 2007, and was reminded of it after the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed on March 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave)

Jessie Shelton is photographed at her parent's home in Minneapolis on Wednesday, March 27, 2024. She survived the Interstate 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis on Aug. 1, 2007, and was reminded of it after the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed on March 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave)

Linda Paul is photographed inside the Minnesota State Capitol building on Wednesday, March 27, 2024, in St. Paul, Minn., where she works part-time as a tour guide. She survived the Interstate 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis on Aug. 1, 2007, and was reminded of it after the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed on March 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Trisha Ahmed)

FILE - In this Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2007 picture, vehicles are scattered along the broken remains of the Interstate 35W bridge, which stretches between Minneapolis and St. Paul, after it collapsed into the Mississippi River during evening rush hour. The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore following a ship strike on March 26, 2024 brought back jarring memories of their own ordeals to people who survived previous bridge collapses. (Stacy Bengs/The Minnesota Daily via AP)

FILE - Recovery workers pull a car from the bay at the site where the Queen Isabella Causeway collapsed, in Port Isabel, Texas, Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2001. The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore following a ship strike on March 26, 2024 brought back jarring memories of their own ordeals to people who survived previous bridge collapses. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

BALTIMORE (AP) — A wooden cross is laden with Miguel Luna’s personal belongings — his construction uniform and work boots, a family photo, the flag of his native El Salvador — but his body remains missing after the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

More than a month has passed since six members of a roadwork crew plunged to their deaths when a container ship lost power and crashed into one of the bridge’s supporting columns. Four bodies have been recovered, but Luna and another worker, Jose Mynor Lopez, have not been found.

They were all Latino immigrants who came to the United States from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. They were fathers and husbands, brothers and grandfathers. They shared a common dream and a determination to achieve it.

In an effort to honor their lives and their work, Baltimore County’s close-knit Latino community has constructed an elaborate memorial near the south end of the bridge. It includes decorated wooden crosses, a painted canvas backdrop, bunches of flowers, candles and a giant modified American flag with six stars — one for each of the men.

A group of mourners gathered at the memorial Friday evening to offer support for the victims’ loved ones and remind the public that even as cleanup efforts proceed on schedule and maritime traffic resumes through the Port of Baltimore, two families have yet to be made whole.

“It is one month, and there’s still two bodies under the water,” said Fernando Sajche, who knew Luna and helped construct the memorial. “We really need some answers.”

Sajche, who immigrated from Guatemala 16 years ago and works in construction himself, said it shouldn’t be lost on anyone that the victims died on the job.

“They’re the people who do the hard work in this country,” Sajche said.

The men were filling potholes on the bridge in the early hours of March 26 when the ship veered off course. A last-minute mayday call from the ship’s pilot allowed police officers to stop traffic to the bridge moments before the collapse, but they didn’t have enough time to alert the workers.

One of the officers who helped block traffic stopped by the vigil Friday and visited briefly with some of Luna’s relatives. He admired the memorial and praised the community’s warm response to an unthinkable tragedy.

Organizers used two cranes to hoist Salvadoran and Guatemalan flags high into the air in honor of Luna and Mynor Lopez.

Marcoin Mendoza, who worked with Luna several years ago as a welder, said Luna came to the U.S. to build a better life for himself and his family, like so many other immigrants.

“Same dream as everybody else,” Mendoza said. “To work hard.”

Luna was especially well-known in his community because his wife has a local food truck specializing in pupusas and other Salvadoran staples. He would often spend his days helping at the food truck and his nights working construction.

As the sun set Friday evening, mourners listened to mariachi music and passed out bowls of soup and beans. They lit candles and prayed together.

Bernardo Vargas, who helped construct the memorial, said he appreciates being able to do something for the victims’ families.

“I’ll be here every day until they find those two people,” he said.

Standing in front of the memorial’s elaborate painted backdrop, he pointed to a cluster of red handprints made by Luna’s relatives. They stood out among abstract depictions of the bridge collapse and salvage efforts as well as a violent scene from the U.S. southern border that showed a row of armored officers fighting back desperate migrants.

Loved ones left messages in English and Spanish.

“Here is where everything ends, all your aspirations and all your work. Now rest until the day when the trumpets sound,” someone had written in Spanish. “You will live on in the hearts of your loving family.”

A vessel, center right, moves past the stranded container ship Dali, through a newly opened deep-water channel in Baltimore after being stuck in the harbor since the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed four weeks ago, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Workers remove wreckage of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

A vessel, center right, moves past the stranded container ship Dali, through a newly opened deep-water channel in Baltimore after being stuck in the harbor since the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed four weeks ago, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Roberto Marquez, an artist from Dallas, speaks during an interview with the Associated Press at a memorial site to honor the construction workers who lost their lives in the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)