Dozens of major bridges lack protective measures
The Lewis and Clark Bridge has towered above the Columbia River for nearly a century, its rugged half- mile truss serving as a gateway for logging trucks and beach vacationers crossing between Washington and Oregon.
Decades ago, to protect against wayward vessels that could threaten the structure, crews installed timber shields around the bridge piers that rise up out of the water. But even as the cargo ships chugging up the Pacific Northwest’s largest river began to grow in size, the timbers rotted away, leaving the bridge vulnerable to disaster.
“If a shiphits one of those piers, it’s gone,” said Jerry Reagor, a semiretired contractor who lives near the bridge and has spent years pressing transportation officials to install new protections. The state views the risk of calamity as low and the cost of preventing it to be high.
Bridges across the country carry similar deficiencies. At 309 major bridges on navigable waterways in theunited States, inspections in recent years have found protection systems around bridge foundations that were deteriorating, potentially outdated or nonexistent, leaving the structures perilously exposed to ship strikes.
A New York Times analysis of federal data and shipping traffic found dozens of these vulnerable bridges spanning waterways that serve as corridors for large vessels — around places such as Boston, New Orleans and Philadelphia.
The review identified 193 bridges that each carry 10,000 vehicles or more a day that have no protections installed around the piers planted in river and seabeds that hold up the bridges.
The potential risk became starkly apparent lastmonthwhen a cargo vessel appeared to lose power and struck a pier of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, causing much of the 1.6mile structure to collapse into the water and killing six people. But the Times reviewshowed that bridges across the country have suffered similar catastrophic failures in recent decades, in places including St. Petersburg, Fla.; Mobile, Ala.; South Padre Island, Texas; and Webbers Falls, Okla.
Those costly and sometimes deadly disasters have brought calls to enhance bridge protections. The Biden administration in 2021 pushed through legislation that will provide $ 40 billion to repair or replace bridges across the country. But the repairs are targeted at only about a third of an estimated 43,000 bridges deemed to be in poor condition. And states have struggled to pay formultimillion- dollar safety improvements, constantly balancing the cost against whatmay be seen as an isolated risk of disaster.
Department of Transportation officials inwashington state have said theywill bewatching thebaltimore investigation to determine whether new pier protections on the Lewis andclark Bridgemight be needed but cautioned that the state has limited funds.
“This would be an improvement project that would cost tens of millions of dollars,” said Kelly Hanahan, a department spokeswoman.
Some states have focused less on upgrading their bridges and instead are working on plans to evacuate them quickly in the event of a ship strike or other problem. Some are concentrating on improving navigation and tugboat protocols to lessen the likelihood of collisions.
Others are rolling the dice.