When will Bay area bridges reopen after Helene?

TAMPA, Fla. — The Florida Highway Patrol reopened the westbound lanes of the Gandy Bridge just before 10 a.m. Friday.

Meanwhile, the southbound Howard Frankland Bridge (I-275) from Hillsborough County to Pinellas County is now open as of 11:30 p.m.

And the northbound lanes of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge have reopened. Southbound lanes remain closed at this time.

Florida’s Director of Emergency Management says the state will try to get the rest Bay area bridges reopened as quickly as possible.

But Kevin Guthrie also told us that they have to inspect those bridges first before they reopen them.

Now that the bridges have been shut down for storm surge and for water overlapping the roadway, Guthrie said, “all of those bridges are going to have to be inspected by the Florida Department of Transportation. But they have bridge inspectors already stage riding out in Tampa. So they’re going to get out there very, very quickly. They’re going to do what they need to do to get those bridges back open, and they’ll get those bridges back open just as fast as they can.”

Guthrie gave us an educated guess at the time the bridges would reopen 12 to 24 hours from the time that we did the interview, which was around 7 p.m. on Thursday.

So it might be Friday evening before they reopen.