State transportation officials closed one lane of a bridge over the Arkansas River near Buena Vista on Tuesday after finding a crack as part of a series of inspections ordered after the Minneapolis bridge collapse.
The repairs to the U.S. 24 river bridge at Johnson Village could be completed as early as today, but until then, traffic will be limited to one lane, Colorado Department of Transportation spokeswoman Stacey Stegman said.
“We’re being very, very cautious,” Stegman said.
In response to the collapse in Minneapolis, the Federal Highway Administration asked states to perform special inspections of similar bridges.
Over the past week, CDOT has been inspecting at least six bridges identified to be of similar deck- truss design to the one in Minneapolis, Stegman said.
Inspectors found a fracture in one of the two angle connectors used to connect a floor beam in the U.S. 24 bridge.
The fractured angle needs to be repaired and eventually replaced, officials said.
Today CDOT crews from Denver will travel to the area to weld a temporary repair.
A plan to permanently repair the bridge had not been developed, Stegman said.
The fracture is believed to have been naturally caused by aging, she said.
The bridge, which handles about 5,500 vehicles a day, was built in 1937, she said.
“It’s an old bridge, and we start to see these types of cracks with age,” she said.
The old Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed Aug. 1 during the evening rush hour. Divers and other rescue crews have recovered nine bodies since then.
Four people remain missing in the murky Mississippi River and are presumed dead.
Navy divers stayed out of the river Tuesday after heavy rains overnight made the currents too treacherous to resume the search, Randy Mitchell, a spokesman for the dive operation, told The Associated Press.
Staff writer Manny Gonzales can be reached at 303-954-1537 or mgonzales@denverpost.com.
