Family mourns Toppenish man killed during Ivan

PENSACOLA, Fla. – Margaret Alvarado can barely bring herself to look at the news pictures of her husband’s tractor trailer hanging from a bridge ripped apart by Hurricane Ivan.

Roberto Molina Alvarado’s truck had apparently stopped on the Interstate 10 bridge over Escambia Bay in Pensacola when it collapsed Thursday, officials said. Divers found the body of the Toppenish, Wash., man Friday in the truck cab, which fell into the water.

“I still can’t believe it,” Margaret Alvarado said from her home in Toppenish. “I’m still hoping that they say it was the wrong person that they found.”

His mother, Consuelo Alvarado, said her son was hauling fruits and vegetables to Miami. He left Brownsville, Texas, on Wednesday afternoon.

“I begged him not to go. I told him there was a hurricane coming,” she said. “He said he had to.”

His wife said the family was struggling financially, so he decided to make the risky trip to bring them back some money.

“I guess he tried to beat the hurricane before it got there,” his brother, Filiberto Alvarado, said from his home in Donna, Texas, where he and his brother were raised.

Roberto Alvarado, 46, worked for Gregory Express, a company in Brownsville, since last year. Before that he had been self-employed for years, primarily hauling loads around Washington and Oregon. He had been a truck driver since his teens.

His family plans to bury him in the Rio Grande Valley, where Roberto and his wife planned to retire. Survivors include his wife, four adult children, his mother and about a dozen siblings.