Tag: Construction and engineering

After a yearlong closure, a bridge over the Puyallup River reopened in 2019 with a sturdy new span and a brand new name. It even won a national award.

But today, the Fishing Wars Memorial Bridge is closed again after federal officials raised concerns about a vintage section of the nearly century-old bridge that carried about 15,000 vehicles a day. It has no timetable to reopen because the city of Tacoma, Washington, first must raise millions of dollars to clean and inspect it.

“It’s frustrating — and hard to comprehend how we got here,” said Ed Wallace, whose Harley-Davidson motorcycle store has lost customers since the nearby bridge was shuttered.

Bridges fulfill a vital function that often goes overlooked until lives are lost or disrupted by a closure or collapse, like that of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore early Tuesday. That bridge crumpled when struck by a cargo ship, not because of poor maintenance. But thousands of others stand in worse shape.

About 42,400 U.S. bridges are in poor condition, yet they carry about 167 million vehicles each day, according to the federal government. Four-fifths of them have problems with the legs holding them up or the arms supporting their load. And more than 15,800 of those bridges also were in poor shape a decade ago, according to an Associated Press analysis.

One of those persistently poor bridges — carrying about 96,000 westbound vehicles daily on Interstate 195 over the Seekonk River in Rhode Island — was suddenly shut to traffic late last year, resulting in long delays as drivers diverted to new routes. In March, the governor announced that the bridge must be demolished and replaced. That could cost up to $300 million and take at least two years to complete.

These closures illustrate a nationwide issue.

“We have not maintained our infrastructure at the rate that we should for many, many years, and now we’re trying to play catch-up,” said Marsia Geldert-Murphey, president of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

When an old bridge gets closed because of safety concerns, it disrupts daily commutes, business supply chains and emergency response times by police, firefighters and medical personnel. Yet many bridges still await replacement or repairs because the costs can reach millions or even billions of dollars.

A massive infrastructure law signed by President Joe Biden in 2021 directed $40 billion to bridges over five years — the largest dedicated bridge investment since construction of the interstate highway system, which began nearly 70 years ago.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that law already is funding over 7,800 bridge projects. One of the most notable is a $3.6 billion project in Cincinnati to build a long-awaited new bridge carrying traffic on Interstates 71 and 75 over the Ohio River at the Kentucky border.

But funding from the infrastructure law will make only a dent in an estimated $319 billion of needed bridge repairs nationwide, according to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association.

“The bottom line is that America’s bridges need a lot of work,” Buttigieg told the AP after visiting the closed Rhode Island bridge. He added: “The sooner we can address those significant bridges, the less likely they will be abruptly taken out of service, or worse, experience the risk of a collapse.”

Inspectors rate bridges using a 0-9 scale, with 7 or above considered “good.” A “poor” rating reflects a 4 or below. A mid-range rating is considered “fair.” The nation’s poor bridges are on average 70 years old.

Even before the federal funding infusion, the number of bridges in poor condition declined 22% over the past decade as structures were repaired, replaced or permanently closed, according to the AP’s analysis. But in recent years, more bridges also slipped from good to fair condition.

Though potholes on bridges can jar cars, many of the most concerning problems are below the surface. Chipping concrete and rusting steel can weaken the piers and beams that keep a bridge upright. When the condition of substructures or superstructures deteriorates too much, a bridge typically is closed out of public safety concerns.

Though rare, bad bridges can eventually collapse.

Design flaws contributed to the evening rush hour collapse of an Interstate 35 bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis in 2007. The collapse killed 13 people and injured 145 others. It also was costly financially. A state analysis estimated Minnesota’s economy lost $60 million in 2007-2008 due to increased travel time and operating costs for commuters and businesses.

In January 2022, a bridge carrying a bus and several cars collapsed over Fern Hollow Creek in Pittsburgh, causing injuries but no deaths. Federal investigators determined the steel legs had corroded to the point of having visible holes, yet inspectors failed to calculate the severity of the problem and the city failed to follow repeated recommendations.

“This bridge didn’t collapse just by an act of God. It collapsed because of a lack of maintenance and repair,” National Transportation Safety Board member Michael Graham said.

Iowa has the most poor bridges, followed by Pennsylvania, Illinois and Missouri. The twin Burlington Street bridges in Iowa City, Iowa, exemplify the financial challenges facing old bridges. The state owns the southbound span carrying vehicles over the Iowa River while the city owns the northbound span of what’s also known as state Highway 1.

The city’s part, constructed in 1915, was rated in poor condition in the 2023 and 2013 National Bridge Inventory. Inspection reports show numerous cracks and structural deficiencies in the concrete bridge. The state’s side, built in 1968, is in much better condition.

Although the federal infrastructure law provided a grant to analyze the bridges, the split ownership has made it difficult to fund the more than $30 million estimated cost of a replacement.

“It’s not something we can just fund in a year and say: ‘Here we go, let’s do it quick,’” said city engineer Jason Havel. “It takes years of planning, years of working through dedicated funding.”

In Rhode Island, problems had been mounting for the I-195 Washington Bridge connecting Providence to East Providence. It closed after an engineer in December noticed the failure of multiple steel tie rods in concrete beams at two piers. A subsequent examination found widespread structural problems.

Joseph McHugh, an engineer with 40 years of experience in bridge and road construction, reviewed a draft engineering report compiled after the bridge’s closure along with inspection reports from July 2022 and July 2023.

“This failure didn’t occur overnight,” McHugh told the AP. “To me, it should have been caught by an inspection, not by a contractor or whomever was looking at what was going on.”

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating allegations that false payment claims for the bridge’s construction, inspection or repair were submitted to the federal government.

Marco Pacheco, who owns a liquor store along a main road in a Portuguese neighborhood of East Providence, said he believes “mismanagement,” “negligence” and “incompetence” caused the closure. His business revenue is down 20% since the bridge closed. But he’s even more concerned about the long-term consequences.

“That traffic doesn’t instantly come back. Folks have reshaped their patterns, their thought processes and so on,” Pacheco said.

Business owners in Washington share similar concerns about the indefinite closure of the Fishing Wars Memorial Bridge, in an industrial area near the Port of Tacoma. Several years ago, the city spent $42 million to replace a span leading up to the river. But the bridge was abruptly closed again last October after the Federal Highway Administration raised concerns that debris had prevented the inspection of potentially corroded steel connection points.

To clean and inspect the bridge, the city first must encapsulate it to protect debris from falling into the river. But the city lacks the more than $6 million needed for the project. It also has no means of paying for a potential $280 million replacement.

A nearby Interstate 5 bridge provides a good alternative but that means many motorists zoom right past an exit ramp without thinking about the Harley-Davidson store or other nearby businesses. At least one shop already has closed.

Wallace, the Harley-Davidson store owner, wishes the city could re-open the bridge, at least temporarily.

“Is there a peril that exists?” Wallace asks rhetorically. “Yeah, absolutely, a very serious one for me as a business owner.”

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Associated Press data reporter Kavish Harjai contributed. Harjai is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

BALTIMORE — A crane that can lift 1,000 tons, described as one of the largest on the Eastern Seaboard, appeared near the site of a collapsed highway bridge in Baltimore as crews prepared Friday to begin clearing wreckage that has stymied the search for four workers missing and presumed dead and blocked ships from entering or leaving the city’s vital port.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore called the Francis Scott Key Bridge’s collapse following a freighter collision an “economic catastrophe” and described the challenges ahead for recovering the workers’ bodies and clearing tons of debris to reopen the Port of Baltimore.

“What we’re talking about today is not just about Maryland’s economy; this is about the nation’s economy,” Moore said at a news conference, the massive crane standing in the background. “The port handles more cars and more farm equipment than any other port in this country.”

Moore went to the scene Friday and said he saw shipping containers ripped apart “like papier-mache.” The broken pieces of the bridge weigh as much as 4,000 tons, Moore said, and teams will need to cut into the steel trusses before they can be lifted from the Patapsco River.

Equipment on hand will include seven floating cranes, 10 tugboats, nine barges, eight salvage vessels and five Coast Guard boats, Moore said. Much of it is coming from the Navy.

“To go out there and see it up close, you realize just how daunting a task this is. You realize how difficult the work is ahead of us,” Moore said. “With a salvage operation this complex — and frankly with a salvation operation this unprecedented — you need to plan for every single moment.”

Water conditions have prevented divers from entering the river, Moore said. When conditions change, they will resume efforts to recover the construction workers, who were repairing potholes on the bridge when it fell early Tuesday.

“We have to bring a sense of closure to these families,” Moore said.

The Coast Guard is focused on removing what’s left of the bridge and the container ship that struck it in order to clear the port’s shipping lanes, Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath said.

Teams of engineers from the Army Corps of Engineers, the Navy and the Coast Guard — along with some private-sector experts — are assessing how to “break that bridge up into the right-sized pieces that we can lift,” Gilreath said.

Maryland’s Department of Transportation is already focused on building a new bridge and is “considering innovative design, engineering and building methods so that we can quickly deliver this project,” Secretary Paul J. Wiedefeld said.

Adam Ortiz, the Environmental Protection Agency’s mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator, said there is no indication of active releases from the ship, nor of the presence in the water of materials hazardous to human health.

Col. Roland L. Butler Jr., superintendent of the Maryland State Police, said the Federal Aviation Administration has been asked to establish a tactical flight restriction area that would begin 3 nautical miles in every direction from the center span of the bridge and extend upward to 1,500 feet.

Butler advised people to keep drones away from the area and said law enforcement is poised to act on any violations of that airspace.

The victims of the collapse were from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, officials said. At least eight people initially went into the water when the ship struck the bridge column, and two of them were rescued.

Divers have recovered the bodies of two men from a pickup truck in the river, but the nature and placement of the debris has complicated efforts to find the other four workers.

“The divers can put their hands on that faceplate, and they can’t even see their hands,” said Donald Gibbons, an instructor with Eastern Atlantic States Carpenters Technical Centers. “So we say zero visibility. It’s very similar to locking yourself in a dark closet on a dark night and really not being able to see anything.”

One of the two whose bodies were found, Alejandro Hernández Fuentes, left Xalapa, Mexico, 15 years ago to join his mother and sister in the United States, hoping to make enough money to eventually build a house and open a business back in his native country. But the 35-year-old put down roots in Maryland, and the family decided he will be buried in the United States.

“He already had a life there; that’s why they didn’t return his body,” Wenceslao Contreras Ortiz, Hernández Fuentes’ uncle, said Friday in Xalapa. He described his nephew as a hard-working father of four who doted on his mother.

Another sister still lives in Mexico but remained in close contact with Hernández Fuentes, and she is asking authorities for help securing a humanitarian visa to travel to the U.S. and say goodbye.

“She just wants to hug him for the last time,” Contreras Ortiz said.

In Baltimore, locals made morning stops at vantage points Friday to watch for the cranes. Ronald Hawkins, 71, who could see the bridge from his home, recalled watching its construction in 1972. It opened in 1977.

“I’m going to come up here every day, because I want to see the bridge coming up out of the water,” Hawkins said. “It’s a hurtin’ thing.”

President Joe Biden’s administration has approved $60 million in immediate aid, and Biden has said the federal government will pay the full cost of rebuilding the bridge, which carried Interstate 695.

Ship traffic at the Port of Baltimore remains suspended, but the Maryland Port Administration said in a statement Friday that trucks were still being processed at marine terminals.

Federal and state officials have said the collision and collapse early Tuesday appeared to be an accident that came after the ship lost power. Investigators are still trying to determine why.

The crash caused the bridge to break and fall into the water within seconds. Authorities had just enough time to stop vehicle traffic but were unable to alert the construction crew.

The loss of a road that carried 30,000 vehicles a day and the port disruption will affect not only thousands of dockworkers and commuters, but also U.S. consumers, who are likely to feel the impact of shipping delays.

Scott Cowan, president of the International Longshoremen’s Association Local 333, said the union was scrambling to help its roughly 2,400 members whose jobs are at risk of drying up.

“If there’s no ships, there’s no work,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can.”

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Associated Press writers Sarah Brumfield in Washington, Kristin M. Hall in Nashville, Tennessee, Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, Alba Alemán in Xalapa, Mexico, and Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington, contributed to this report.