USA TODAY International Edition
Collapsed Calif. bridge earned ‘ A’ rating last year
I- 10 structure also listed as ‘ functionally obsolete’ in 2013
A 48- year- old bridge that collapsed Sunday in a rain- swollen California desert earned an “A” rating last year, federal records show.
Built in 1967, the Tex Wash Bridge sits on Interstate 10, linking Los Angeles to Phoenix.
The bridge, located just east of Palm Springs, Calif., is owned and maintained by the California Department of Transportation, or CalTrans.
Officials there were investigating how a highly rated bridge managed to fail so spectacularly.
An average of more than 20,000 cars per day pass through the area, according to federal highway statistics.
Traffic was rerouted to give motorists options around the crucial arterial link.
The bridge had a “sufficiency rating” of 91.5 out of 100, higher than dozens of other interstate bridges, according to the Federal Highway Administration. Yet as recently as 2013, the bridge was listed as “functionally obsolete” — inadequate for its task but not unsafe and without known structural problems that needed to be fixed. The classification often means that a bridge is either too small or poorly suited for modern- day traffic. Seven other I- 10 bridges have been deemed “functionally obsolete.”
Federal Highway Administration data list 119 obsolete bridges and 79 structurally deficient bridges in Riverside County, Calif., a 7,303- square- mile swath that stretches from east of Los Angeles to the Arizona border.
Sunday, a black truck was driving east on I- 10 at 4: 45 p. m. when the bridge crumpled beneath it. Bystanders used straps from their cars to tie the truck to a guardrail and prevent it from washing away in the running water below. The truck’s passenger was able to get out, but the driver had to be rescued.
Firefighters went into rapidly rising water while asphalt and debris fell around them, and they pulled the driver out by 7 p. m.
At the scene Monday, it appeared that floodwaters had eaten away at the bridge’s foundation.
Riverside County Supervisor John Benoit, who toured the damage, said several fixes have been considered, including a new bridge.
“It’s going to take days, even under the best estimation, to open that road. Even weeks and months,” Benoit said.
Interstate 10 was empty between Coachella and Desert Center, Calif., except for a rest stop where truck drivers gathered and a California Highway Patrol officer monitored the closure.
“I worked here eight years, and I never saw a thoroughfare affected like this,” said officer Mike Radford, spokesman for the California Highway Patrol’s Indio office.