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| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- | |
| I-40 bridge in Memphis could be closed for months, TDOT says | |
| 2021-05-13 | |
| [WREG] Bridge closed for traffic after inspection finds crack. Officials with the Tennessee Department of Transportation said in a news conference on Memphis on Wednesday that they do not know when the I-40 bridge will be opened after it was closed for emergency repairs Tuesday afternoon. According to state authorities, Arkansas hired a team to take a look at the bridge as part of routine inspections every two years. The team on the ground saw a fracture Tuesday and immediately called 911 to have the bridge shut down. The fracture is close to the middle of the steel "M" span, TDOT said. Three plates in a two-foot-wide steel beam had separated by a fraction of an inch and a fourth plate had a crack. Officially known as the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, the structure carries traffic on I-40 over the Mississippi River between Memphis, Tennessee and West Memphis, Arkansas. It opened in 1973 and carried about 37,000 vehicles a day in 2018, TDOT said. It was last inspected in 2019 and is inspected every two years, TDOT said. Officials with TDOT said Wednesday they are in charge of maintenance and repairs, with the states of Arkansas and Tennessee splitting the costs for the repairs. Right now they are in the process of analyzing whether or not it will be safe for their crews to go back out on bridge, for barge traffic to travel underneath it, and whether or not it will even hold its own weight. This is a very big deal. They've shut down the Mississippi River traffic, too.
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| Posted by:Mullah Richard |
| #12 procopius, this will make the second time the Ten-Tom has picked up traffic when the Mississippi was closed the first was in 1988 when a drought closed much of the Mississippi to barge traffic |
| Posted by: Lord Garth 2021-05-13 19:49 |
| #11 Did somebody say trains? I like trains. I even know people who own trains. Choo Choo MFrs! /Big Guy |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2021-05-13 17:52 |
| #10 That makes the 'folly' of the Tombigbee a viable alternative for barge traffic. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2021-05-13 15:43 |
| #9 Can anyone here play this game? |
| Posted by: CaseyCivilEngineer 2021-05-13 15:12 |
| #8 River Traffic is currently stopped also. If river stays closed for several months a lot of the freight will have to be loaded onto rail. Doable but adds cost. |
| Posted by: Lord Garth 2021-05-13 15:02 |
| #7 Looks like a complete joint fracture that should've been caught much earlier. Caltrans does bi-annual inspections of CA local bridges with local agencies for this very reason. This is a critical fuck-up |
| Posted by: Frank G 2021-05-13 14:03 |
| #6 Vehicle traffic will be routed over the I 55 bridge aka the “Old Bridge.” It’s already busy enough with both bridges open. I don’t even want to imagine it now. Shutting down the barge traffic is really bad. Suez canal bad locally |
| Posted by: Lowspark 2021-05-13 13:05 |
| #5 Almost 50 year old bridge. Inspection found a problem, which is the whole point of doing inspections. What does Frank G have to say? This is a big deal bridge, will royally foul up traffic. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2021-05-13 09:36 |
| #4 Early analysis should tell us if the crack is fresh (no rust) or been there a while. Then - possibly - they might open it to (brave) automobiles and do daily inspections of the crack. Or close I-40 for two years. Is the element "fracture critical" or are there redundant structures to carry the load? Given all the hubbub, I suppose it is fracture critical. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2021-05-13 08:58 |
| #3 OK - now I get swksvolFF's joke yesterday. |
| Posted by: Raj 2021-05-13 08:52 |
| #2 I welcome anything that might impede the flow of Biden illegal immigrants to Georgia. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2021-05-13 01:26 |
| #1 Gee Wizz, Thank Biden and Congress for being so forward leaning and putting all that infrastructure money out there to fix this stuff, just in time ! Their share of the Infrastructure take should just about cover .... errrr, Lunch for the inspectors , 4 bags of cement and a TIG welder to mend the whole thing together... Go Joe, go...you are on a roll, but the gateway to the Mid-West isn't... \sarc off |
| Posted by: Bigfoot Thusoting6688 2021-05-13 00:59 |