Friday, April 15
April 15, 2011
TGMC dedicates pictured wall of donors
April 19, 2011
After an overweight truck placed the Valentine Pontoon Bridge on a 23-day hiatus, Lafourche Parish has reopened the transportation route across Bayou Lafourche to car traffic.
The bridge sustained crippling damages to its pivot arm and electrical components when a truck belonging to A L Trucking of Picayune, Miss. crossed the bridge in mid-March while weighing in excess of three times the posted weight limit of 10 tons.
“While the damages were bad to the Valentine Bridge, this could have been a catastrophe,” Lafourche Parish Public Works Director Kerry Babin said. “That entire pontoon could have capsized.
“We had a bridge tender in the bridge house that could have sustained injury or worse as a result of just ignoring the weight limit signs. It’s serious business when people either fail to observe or ignore weight limit postings.”
The parish initially used money from its general fund to pay Bollinger Shipyards for repairs to the bridge, but Babin said the trucking company’s insurance agency has been receptive to reimbursing the costs, including labor and material, which should be less than or equal to $20,000.
The truck that crossed the bridge weighed 68,000 pounds and was overweight by almost 50,000 pounds.
The heavy load bent the swing arm, a steel beam that connects the bridge to the on-shore pivot point. Babin said the beam was between 10 and 12 inches thick.
“It was instant damage to [the swing arm], plus some of the electrical because when that beam crumpled and went underwater, it also brought some of the electrical components of the bridge control underwater.”
A less expensive to build, more frequently maintained and less durable mode of transportation for vehicles crossing a body of water, the floating bridges are seen as a cheap alternative to lift bridges in allowing vehicles to cross a ship-trafficking body of water.
Every “five to eight years,” the barge portion of the mechanical bridges is dry-docked to undergo inspections, Babin said.
“I mean, the technology has changed very, very little on pontoon bridges through the years,” Babin said. “While the control panels have been upgraded, we still rely on wenches, cables and pulleys.
“It requires daily maintenance by our maintenance boats and also the bridge tenders on duty as far as greasing and watching to make sure that all the mechanical functions are functioning properly.”
Babin said if properly maintained, pontoon bridges could last between 25 and 30 years.
In Lafourche Parish, four floating bridges connect the east side of Bayou Lafourche to the west side. An additional pontoon bridge extends over the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway in Bayou Blue.
Three of the five are parish-owned and two are managed by the state. Four of the five bridges are currently in service.
The state-owned Bayou Blue Pontoon Bridge is the lone inoperable pontoon bridge in the parish. The bridge was closed last September for extensive repairs after a vessel collided with it and is anticipated to open later this month, according to Brendan Rush, customer service manager with state Department of Transportation and Development.
The Larose Pontoon Bridge, completed in 1953, is scheduled for replacement by a lift bridge under construction in Larose. At 57 years old, it is the oldest state-owned pontoon bridge in Louisiana.
The replacement is more of a singular occurrence than a budding trend, according to Rush. “There are no statewide plans to replace any pontoon bridges. This would be considered on a case by case basis where replacement would be warranted.”
The state manages 10 pontoon bridges. The longest, at 165 feet, is the Black Bayou pontoon bridge over the Intracoastal in Calcasieu Parish.
The Bayou Blue Pontoon Bridge, undergoing repairs after it was damaged by a ship last September, is scheduled to reopen later this month according to the state DOTD. The Valentine Pontoon Bridge was reopened after undergoing repairs caused by an overweight truck. ERIC BESSON
