Feds offer California $2M to repair collapsed highway bridge

The Arizona Department of Transportation says there is no estimate on when a stretch of Interstate 10 about 45 miles west of the Arizona/California state line will reopen after a bridge washed out during storms last weekend.

The California Department of Transportation said crews would buttress the westbound side of the bridge carrying I-10 over a wash near the Arizona border to allow for two-way traffic. Work will continue on the eastbound bridge until it is functional, according to the LA Times.

The Tex Wash bridge collapse on eastbound I-10 shut down the major commercial trade route between Arizona and California. Work crews plan to shore it up – footing that once rested on ground had the soil swept from under it – and eastbound traffic could then use one of its two lanes, agency spokesman Will Shuck said.

Traffic will resume on Interstate 10 on Friday, less than a week after the heavy rain caused serious damage to the highway and collapsed a bridge.

If the segment remained closed for a month, the cost would total an additional $75 million to those trucks delivering freight in that area, ATRI said.

The flash floods followed heavy rains Sunday as the remnants of tropical storm Dolores rolled over Southern California. That traffic has been diverted over an hours long detour on smaller desert highways. Caltrans doesn’t have a timetable for its reconstruction.

When inspectors visited the bridge in March, they found no structural issues, according to Caltrans.

Caltrans said the span would have withstood the flooding if the water had barreled down the middle of the natural channel, but its path shifted, as can happen in the desert, concentrating its full force on the western bank.

One person was hospitalized with broken ribs, a shattered knee and lacerations to his liver in a crash on the damaged section of bridge.

The eastbound bridge failed during a major storm Sunday when fast-moving flood waters shifted the dirt that held its foundation in place.

Any decision on whether to change the protection or maintenance of bridges over desert gullies will come later, according to Caltrans spokeswoman Vanessa Wiseman.