Crews Install Shields To Protect Oklahoma Bridges

Tuesday, January 9th 2007, 10:12 am

By: News On 6

An effort is now underway to prevent the kind of barge collisions that can cause a bridge collapse. New barriers are going up at the U.S. Highway 62 bridge at Muskogee and on the State Highway 51 bridge near Wagoner. The bridge barriers are complete on the U.S. Highway 64 bridge at Webbers Falls, and they're under construction now at the I-40 bridge over the Arkansas River where a barge collision Collapsed that bridge in 2002, killing 14 people.

News on 6 reporter Emory Bryan has the story.

Cranes mounted on barges are working on a job to protect the I-40 bridge. Huge new concrete barriers will serve as a sort of guardrail on the waterway, so if a barge is out of control it would hit the barrier and not the bridge.

"And to come back and start a safety measure not just as that point, but also three other bridges on the navigation system will be very very important for safety along it," ODOT spokesman Cole Perryman said.

The I-40 bridge had a barrier on the north side when a barge hit it on the south side. The old barriers were guards against loose barges that were drifting and they were no protection from the barge that hit it, which was going under power, upstream, without anyone at the controls. 14 drivers on I-40 plunged into the river and died.

Now four of the biggest and most vulnerable bridges on the navigation channel will have protection from both sides. New 12-foot diameter, steel reinforced barriers will protect every bridge pier that's in water deep enough for a barge to travel. The barriers protecting the bridge piers are strong enough to stop just about anything that might come down river. The engineers say they're built to stop three loaded barges moving on the river at 6-miles an hour.

Two other bridges will get the same level of protection. The U.S. Highway 62 bridge at Muskogee will be surrounded with 8 new barriers. The State Highway 51 bridge at Webbers Falls will get two new barriers as the final part of the $15 million dollar project.