Regina Leader-Post

Rural bridge falls down just hours after opening

Farmer heard ‘a big sloosh’ and got help to call 911 and close the bridge to traffic

- ARTHUR WHITE-CRUMMEY awhite-crummey@postmedia.com

Part of a bridge in the Rural Municipali­ty of Clayton fell into a river on the day it was opened to traffic.

Reeve Duane Hicks was standing on the recently replaced Dyck Memorial Bridge just an hour before a roughly 15-foot span gave way shortly after 4 p.m. Friday.

“I feel a little bad about it, a little spooky,” he said. “You can’t ever tell when you’re going to die. Thank God I wasn’t there when it happened. Thank God nobody else was.”

The bridge, which had just been completed, crossed the Swan River just west of Swan Plain. No one was injured in the incident. Hicks called it an “act of God,” insisting the bridge was built to standard.

“Something underneath the riverbed just gave way, and one whole section just sort of dropped,” he said.

The RM of Clayton is located north of Canora and Yorkton in east-central Saskatchew­an.

Hicks said the foreman phoned him on Friday, before the collapse, to tell him that “something isn’t quite right here.”

Hicks and an RM councillor drove to the site to take a look. He said it appeared that the pilings were sinking.

About an hour later, a nearby farmer heard “a big sloosh,” Hicks explained. A neighbour joined in to help and the two farmers called 911 and took action to close the bridge to traffic.

“They saved, potentiall­y, people’s lives,” said Hicks. “Because if you’re driving along, not looking, that would be a hell of a hole to drive into.”

The specific cause of the bridge’s weakness is still a mystery, according to Hicks, who said the Reginabase­d constructi­on and engineerin­g companies will now conduct an investigat­ion.

“They don’t know if there’s an air or gas pocket or undergroun­d river or whatever,” he said.

“It wasn’t structural­ly faulty. The fault is in what God did under the river.”

The loss of the crossing will not impose any additional costs on the RM, Hicks said. He explained that the RM had not yet signed off on the bridge, which was under warranty.

“It’s their dime,” he said of the constructi­on and engineerin­g companies.

Hicks said he expects a new bridge will be built within three or four weeks. But the delay presents an inconvenie­nce for farmers, who were hoping for easier access in transporti­ng their crops across the river.

“It’s very important to the farmers,” Hicks said. “We were trying to get that bridge opened for harvest and we did, we made it.

“Then it fell apart on us.”

Something underneath the riverbed just gave way, and one whole section just sort of dropped.

 ??  ?? The Dyck Memorial Bridge, photograph­ed on Sunday from the east side of the Swan River after a section collapsed. The bridge collapsed on Friday just hours after it had been opened.
The Dyck Memorial Bridge, photograph­ed on Sunday from the east side of the Swan River after a section collapsed. The bridge collapsed on Friday just hours after it had been opened.

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