The fatal collapse of a bridge in Minnesota has prompted Delaware transportation officials to expand monitoring efforts of the Indian River Inlet Bridge and bridges throughout the state.
Though the troubled inlet bridge shares the same “structurally deficient” federal rating as the I-35W bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis last week, killing at least four and injuring roughly 100, Delaware officials were quick to note differences and say the inlet bridge is safe.
“We are saying, with authority, that it is absolutely safe,” said Darrel Cole, spokesman for the Delaware Department of Transportation. “If it were not safe, it would be closed. I don’t know how else to say that. We have a group of professionals here that do nothing but work on bridges. If that bridge were unsafe, it would be closed. They do not take their jobs lightly.”
The Minnesota bridge was built with a steel truss design and was susceptible to complete collapse if even one portion of the bridge faltered, Cole pointed out this week. If one portion of the Indian River bridge collapsed, weight would shift to the other pilings, allowing it to continue to stand, transportation officials have said.
“The bridge in Minnesota is completely different,” Cole emphasized.
The Indian River Inlet Bridge, which is scheduled to be replaced by 2012, is one of 35 Delaware bridges rated “structurally deficient.” According to the Federal Highway Administration, the federal agency that rates bridges nationwide, a “structurally deficient” rating means that portions of the bridge need to be monitored closely or replaced. The rating does not necessarily imply that a bridge is unsafe, according to the federal government.
In the case of the bridge at the Indian River Inlet, erosion is undermining the underwater supports of the bridge.
In the wake of the Minnesota collapse, federal transportation officials have called on state officials to evaluate similar bridges and Delaware officials have proactively expanded monitoring efforts even on some that are not similarly built, including the Indian River bridge.
By late this year and spring of next year, new monitors will be installed above and below water at the Indian River bridge to monitor movement and alert officials immediately of any potentially dangerous changes, Cole said. Department officials currently monitor movement on the deck monthly and have not noticed any alarming changes, he added. Officials also perform annual underwater and above-water bridge inspections.
Two bid processes to begin work on replacing the inlet bridge have fallen through in the last couple years.
First, the only bid submitted came in roughly $80 million more than expected and was rejected by state officials. Earlier this year, officials scrapped bids after preliminarily naming a winning bidder in fear of legal troubles. Union leaders who backed the losing bidder, which had promised to use union labor, disputed the bidding process.
“Ambiguous” language authorizing the process to award bids was cleared up with this year’s bond bill, which was approved on July 1. Officials hope to re-start the bidding process within weeks and name a winner within a year.
A new completion date is preliminarily scheduled by state transportation officials for sometime in 2012. In a report last summer, however, a state engineer noted that the bridge could become unsafe as early as 2011.
The Indian River Inlet Bridge carries 14,000 cars daily in the off-season and about double that in the summer months. It is considered a vital transportation lifeline between Delaware’s beach resorts for medical officials transporting patients, as well as for visitors and local residents.
Karen McGrath, the executive director of the Bethany-Fenwick Area Chamber of Commerce who calls the bridge replacement the single biggest issue facing the economy in the area — not to mention safety — worried publicly this week that DelDOT officials are taking too long to re-start the bidding process.
“I’m sure they would close it before anything terrible happened. But closed is closed,” McGrath said. “I’m not getting the sense of urgency that the people in our community feel to a point of ridiculousness. Why wasn’t this ready to go? Nobody will answer to that. Why were they sitting on their hands? It should have been working all along. It should have been ready to go as soon as the bond bill was passed.”
Cole said that officials have been studying new language in the bond bill and have been working since the bill’s passage in early July. State Sen. George Bunting (D-20th) defended the transportation department in an interview with the Coastal Point this week.
“A lot of that bridge issue is not DelDOT so much as it is pure politics that’s going on with the bid,” he said. “DelDOT is catching a lot of heat that they probably shouldn’t be catching, because I think they’re doing the proper monitoring.”