U.S. Sen. Tom Carper recently visited the area, stopping in at the South Coastal Library for its book sale fundraiser. But Carper picked up more than a good tome or two — he got an earful from area residents and visitors about their concerns over the safety of the Indian River Inlet Bridge.
“You really need to do something about the Indian River Bridge, before 2011,” one book sale customer told Carper, referring to the current earliest estimates for completion of the planned bridge replacement project, which has suffered delays for under budgetary shortfalls and a bidding question that resulted in threatened legal action.
Several others mentioned to Carper their concerns about a possible bridge failure in the days after a Minneapolis bridge unexpectedly collapsed and killed eight people, injuring nearly 80 others.
Engineers have been keeping a close eye on the bridge since the 1980’s, when major scouring or erosion under its supports was noticed.
According to DelDOT engineer Dennis O’Shea, the depth of the inlet at the bridge’s support pilings had been about 23 feet when it was built, starting in 1965, with the southbound span completed in 1976.
The scouring had exposed the bridge’s support pilings by the late 1980’s, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers divers said their inspections had shown scouring severe enough for the divers to swim underneath one of the concrete footings. The Corps installed protective riprap around the bridge piers as a temporary measure and state officials placed the bridge on a list of those to be replaced in the future.
By 1999, the inlet was measured at more than 100 feet deep, bringing into question the continuing stability of the riprap and the pilings themselves.
State officials have long recognized that the scouring problem would mean the bridge’s next iteration would have to have its feet on dry land, and in 2003 they invited the public to give input on the design of the new bridge, which was initially planned as a design-forward single-arch, radial-tied bridge.
But the arch design was bid at nearly $200 million — $50 million more than was originally budgeted for the design-build project. Thus, the cost of the new design proved prohibitive for the state, which has been suffering under a transportation budget crunch for several years that has also impacted other local projects, such as the planned revamp of Route 26. According to Carper, who visited with DelDOT Secretary Carolann Wicks last week, that department currently is expecting a $50 million shortfall for the 2009 fiscal year.
State officials scaled back the bridge project after the initial bid, throwing out the original eye-catching design and its big price tag in favor of something more like what is already in place over the inlet, at a cost of roughly $130 million. Bidding for the project went on earlier this year, and the project was awarded to a Florida company. But labor leaders challenged that award, saying that the out-of-state contractor had not guaranteed it would use union workers and questioning whether the state had picked the most qualified contractor.
DelDOT again put the project on hold, waiting for clarification of the bid instructions from the state legislature. That clarification was received at the end of the June 2007 legislative session. The project is expected to go out to bid again in the next few months and to be awarded by July of 2008, but the delays have cost the state — and the bridge — precious time in a dwindling lifespan.
The bridge remains at the top of DelDOT’s priority list for replacement, Wicks assured the public in the wake of the Minnesota bridge collapse, while DelDOT officials also emphasized that they consider the bridge to be safe. But local residents and visitors have become all the more aware of the limited time left for the bridge to be safely used before a replacement is truly needed.
Estimates of its safe life have ranged from 2008 to 2011, depending on the study quoted and which officials were fielding the question. A 2005 report to state legislators indicated the bridge’s lifespan could reach its end in three to five years — between 2008 and 2011 — but despite publication of those numbers at the time and recollections of legislators to that effect, no copy of that report can now be located.
Past bridge failures
indicate vulnerability
Longtime residents of the area may know something about the history of the inlet bridge that newer residents and visitors are likely unaware of: the span’s predecessors have a history of failure.
According to O’Shea, in a 2006 commentary, “Until 1928, the Inlet had functioned as a natural inlet, shifting up and down the coast over a 2-mile range. Between 1928 and 1937 the Inlet was kept open by dredging, and in 1938, the Army Corps of Engineers constructed the jetties.”
“The first bridge over the Inlet was a timber bridge constructed in 1934, followed by a concrete and steel movable swing bridge built in 1938,” O’Shea said. “This lasted until 1948, when it was destroyed by ice flow and extreme tides. Another concrete and steel swing bridge built in 1952 lasted until the current bridge was built in 1965.”
The 1934 wood trestle bridge was damaged by storms, according to a DelDOT report developed in preparation for the latest replacement plan for the Indian River bridge. The replacement bridge — the C.W. Cullen Bridge, started in 1940 — was tended to with bulkheads in 1941 and stone fill in 1947. It lasted until just 1948, when it collapsed during a winter ice storm, with fatal results as vehicles on the bridge plunged into the inlet, much as in Minneapolis this summer.
In a book titled “Delaware’s Roadways,” which is a historical perspective of DelDOT’s work, state historians wrote, “In the late 1940s, the bridge division expanded its inspection program as a result of a bridge failure in Sussex County that caused the death of three motorists. On Feb. 10, 1948, the approach spans of the SR 14 over Indian River Inlet bridge collapsed as a result of unusually high tides, easterly winds and ice flows that caused excessive scour underneath several of the piers.”
Bethany Beach resident Milton Cooper was serving in the Coast Guard at the inlet at the time of the 1948 collapse and recalled the tragedy this week.
“I was at the station down there when it collapsed, when the ice took it down,” he said, adding that he didn’t think anyone was aware at the time that there might be a structural issue with the bridge.
“The man on the bridge, he went and called the state about a half-hour or so before and said the ice was bad in the Inlet and he didn’t know if they were going to close it or not,” Cooper remembered.
“There was a truck on it when it collapsed. Our Coast Guard boat picked some of the guys up out of the ice, and the truck went down with the bridge,” Cooper said. “The men inside it were killed. They drowned in the truck.”
While the impact on the area’s transportation from the Indian River Inlet Bridge going out of service would undoubtedly be much higher today than in 1948, the collapse then indicates how vital a link the bridge is to the Delaware shore.
“You had to go all the way around, by Millsboro,” Cooper said. “There was no transportation.”
It has been estimated that the closure of the bridge would add as much as 45 minutes to the travel time of ambulances from southern Delaware coastal towns to Beebe Medical Center in Lewes, putting patients at risk.
And beyond the day-to-day importance of the bridge is its function as an evacuation route, which was noted in DelDOT’s 2004 report on the bridge replacement plan.
“The Indian River Inlet Bridge is a critical link for SR1, which serves regional and seasonal traffic along the Delaware and Maryland coast and is the only land access for visitors to the Delaware Seashore State Park,” the report reads. “History has shown a bridge with piers in the Indian River Inlet is susceptible to destructive environmental factors such as saltwater, strong tidal currents, ice, and storms. The existing bridge piers and channel are currently subject to scour from strong tidal activity in the inlet.
“Maintenance and monitoring of the bridge piers are temporary measures, but not a long-term solution to a serious scour problem,” it continues. “Recent bridge surveys document that the scour problems continue. It is for these reasons that DelDOT has decided, at this time, to develop a bridge that eliminates the persistent scour problem within the inlet, by designing and constructing a structure that spans the tidal inlet and contains no piers within the water.”
According to the information on the 1948 collapse in “Delaware’s Roadways,” “An independent report concluded that the accident might have been prevented with more in-depth inspection even though bridge engineers had visited the bridge earlier in the day of the disaster. They failed to detect the problem. The bridge collapse prompted the division to step up regular inspections and, in particular, to update its standards to prevent and detect scour.”
The bridge was rebuilt in 1952, but in 1962 it was closed, again due to severe storm damage.
“Note the service life of each of these bridges in this severe environment,” O’Shea emphasized in his 2006 commentary.
That harsh environment is of no less concern as the current Indian River Inlet Bridge reaches 30 years old.
Along with the scour action of the waves and tide in the inlet, O’Shea said, “An additional concern related to the scour is the exposure of the steel H piles to salt water. H piles are the support piles for the piers. Water, especially salt water, is detrimental to steel. DelDOT attempted to control the exposure of the piles by installing a protection system. Unfortunately, this system has been problematic and the exposed steel support piles are continuing to corrode, losing strength.”
DelDOT has also kept a close eye on the impact of severe storms on the aging bridge, since they have frequently been immediate factors in previous structure failures there.
“The deep scour around the arch base may eventually extend to the riprap revetment of the inlet,” a 2004 report on the scouring states. “The steel sheet piles behind the riprap may have been installed more than 60 years ago and may collapse under the combined action of waves and currents. The lateral erosion of the unprotected bank can occur rapidly and may reach the arch base during an extremely severe storm.”
While the focus of safety officials and the public in regards to severe storms has largely been focused on the potential impact on the shoreline, beach homes, business and their owners and occupants, the area’s bridges are also clearly vulnerable to storm damage. The current bridge, as it was only built starting in 1967, was not around to weather the infamous 1962 storm that wreaked havoc on the Delaware coast. How it, in the vulnerable state in which it is known to exist today, would handle a severe storm is a troubling unknown.
No way to speed process though timing critical
Together, these issues only serve to highlight the pressing concern of the area’s residents about the bridge. It handles some 14,000 vehicles per day, with about 28,000 cars traveling over it during an average summer day.
Even O’Shea, as he pressed the case for construction of the replacement span, emphasized the importance of timing in getting the work done sooner, rather than later.
“That timeframe is critical, in that an analysis of the historical progression of the scour in the Inlet indicates that the holes will continue to expand such that the stone protection would be undermined and fall into the holes,” he wrote last year.
That led residents to tax Carper on the issue when he visited last week. But the senator said the issue is really up to the state now.
“What’s hanging things up is not a lack of federal funds, it’s over the bidding process,” Carper emphasized. “We’ve contributed tens of millions of dollars to the project — half the cost.”
Indeed, Delaware Congressional delegation has secured for the Indian River Inlet Bridge replacement more than $70 million in federal funds over the past five or six years, through the Safe, Accountable, Flexible and Efficient Transportation Equity Act (SAFETEA) and appropriations bills.
And while many in the area have been heard to complain about the price of gasoline, Carper said a recent hike in the federal portion of the gasoline tax — up to 18 cents per gallon under a new five-year federal transportation plan — is feeding that money to state projects such as the Indian River bridge. Funds collected nationwide on the tax are pooled and then re-appropriated to such projects.
And Delaware gets at least a fair share of that money, Carper noted, at approximately $1.61 in funds returned to Delaware projects for every dollar a Delaware motorist pays in federal gasoline tax.
The bridge project is on a 80/20 federal/state cost share, and Carper said the funding holdups that have left the project dangling until it also hit the bidding issue were with the state meeting requirements for its federal match.
Now that the project has its initial funding from the state, the bidding issue is what has pushed construction completion back until — or after — the estimated end of the current bridge’s lifespan. Carper said he was powerless to speed things up and it is unclear if anyone can move the project forward at a faster pace.
Even in 2006, before the Minnesota collapse put an extra sense of urgency in to the air concerning the Indian River bridge, O’Shea was emphatic that inspections would continue to assess whether the bridge is safe for continued travel.
“To ensure the bridge remains stable before a new bridge is built, DelDOT performs underwater diver inspections on a regular basis and the Corps has continued to provide DelDOT with their periodic bathymetric surveys,” he wrote. “The technology has improved over the years allowing the viewer to see an underwater picture of the site. In addition, land survey equipment on the bridge monitors movement.”
With at least three years needed to complete the new bridge after the new bid is awarded, area residents and visitors are hoping that such monitoring will give the state ample time to know when — or if — the bridge becomes structurally unsound.
The next inspection of the bridge was already scheduled for September and could, if the news is good, serve to bolster the confidence of area drivers as they drive over the vulnerable span in the meantime.