Half an 18-wheeler teetering on the edge of a bridge where Escambia Bay swallowed a stretch of Interstate 10 into Santa Rosa County.
The cab of the truck and part of its trailer simply vanished, along with huge concrete sections of the bridge.
The photo, seen around the world, left lingering questions: Who was the trucker? And what happened to him?
Late Friday, divers found the cab embedded in the muddy bottom. Inside, they found the trucker's body.
On Saturday he was identified as 46-year-old Roberto Alvarado.
But who was Roberto Alvarado? And what was he doing on that bridge?
The answers lie thousands of miles away, with a grieving wife in a small town in Washington state.
* * *
Back home, his family needed the money.
"We were struggling," Alvarado's wife, Margaret, said Saturday from their home in Toppenish, Wash. "He said he was going to make some loads and come back. He was going to bring us money."
They had been married 28 years. He was born in Arkansas, raised in Texas and Washington state. They met when their parents worked together cutting asparagus.
She liked how he opened the car door for her and took her dancing. Early on, he always offered to buy her food or soda, but she refused because she was too nervous.
Together, they raised four children - Veronica, Robert Jr., Michael and Lisa Marie - who now range in age from 19 to 25.
He came home when he could. But Alvarado's family grew used to his absence long ago. His father was a trucker, and he'd been on the road since he was a teenager.
"He had a love for truck driving," said Margaret Alvarado, 51. "That's all he wanted to do. That was his way of life."
For years he was self-employed, hauling loads mostly around Washington and Oregon. But last year, his wife said, Alvarado signed up with Gregory Express, a company in Brownsville, Texas. His mother lived in nearby Donna, Texas.
At the last minute, he agreed to haul a load of fruits and vegetables from Texas to Miami. Alvarado's mother begged him not to go, his wife said. But he went anyway, hoping to find a load that would carry him back to Washington soon.
Margaret and Robert Alvarado talked only periodically when he was away. They hadn't spoken in weeks.
"That's the understanding that we have," she said. She wishes now she could have talked to him one last time.
* * *
The knock on the door came about 6 p.m. Friday, West Coast time, just as Margaret Alvarado arrived home from work. Her four children were there.
An officer stood at the door. His words changed everything.
The children locked themselves in their rooms. Margaret Alvarado sat in the living room, "just staring into space." They all cried, hard.
"He was my life. He was my everything," Margaret said. "Part of me is gone."
No one can say for sure why Alvarado was on the bridge as Ivan came ashore. Maybe he didn't realize he was driving into a hurricane. Maybe he didn't understand what a threat he faced.
Alvarado's truck, headed east, apparently stopped on the bridge when it collapsed late at night, said Col. Chris Knight, spokesman for the Florida Highway Patrol. But even Knight was stumped.
"We don't know why he was there," Knight told the Associated Press.
When the accident happened, more than concrete and steel fell into the water. Dreams fell, too.
"We wanted to retire in the Rio Grande Valley" where both their mothers live, Margaret Alvarado said Saturday. "That's where we planned to grow old and gray."
Most of the time, she still talks about him in the present tense.
* * *
The world is left with only the photograph of Alvarado's truck, the front half swallowed by the bay, the back half clinging to the shattered bridge.
Margaret Alvarado will keep different images in her mind.
She will remember a man who smiled often. A man who listened to piano music and country-western. A man who loved Gilligan's Island and his children.
Roberto Alvarado's dozen or so siblings are driving from Washington state to Texas to be with their mother. His children will make the drive, too. His wife plans to fly there soon.
This week, Alvarado's body also will arrive in Texas. He'll be buried in the Rio Grande Valley, just where he wanted to be.
Margaret still plans to retire there, one way or another.
