Structural Crack Closes Mississippi River Interstate Bridge Indefinitely

[JohnnyRingo]

I wonder if John Boozman and Tom Cotton are planning on voting no on the Infrastructure Bill. After all, we can't afford to fix such silly things as bridges.

Structural Crack Closes Mississippi River Interstate Bridge Indefinitely

The Hernando de Soto Bridge is a through arch bridge connecting West Memphis, Arkansas to Memphis, Tennessee across the Mississippi river on I-40. The 9,432 foot long bridge is, as you can imagine, one of the busier bridges in the region. Over 37,000 cars, trucks, and tractor trailers cross the bridge every day, but that’s been put to a halt. On Tuesday an Arkansas Department of Transportation inspection of the bridge uncovered a structural crack in the bridge around 2 p.m., and all lanes of the bridge were subsequently closed.

According to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the public information officer for ADOT confirmed the existence of the crack, and claimed the stoppage could last “as little as an hour or as long as a week” with no defined re-opening procedure. He was also not able to provide an idea of how often such structural cracks are discovered on major interstate bridges.

A cursory check of idrivearkansas.com shows that I-40 is indeed closed, and the reroute recommended on I-55 is severely backed up due to the massive influx of traffic. I imagine things will get significantly worse as morning and afternoon commutes continue to get backed up.

More here:
https://jalopnik.com/structural-crack-closes-mississippi-river-interstate-br-1846873043

[COL Mustard]

1. Kind Of Gives New Meaning To The Old Saying

This is your brain on crack.