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to repair and upgrade the bridge. Askew explained that hearings would have been interrupted by the August flood. “We were just getting into this process of what to do with the bridge,” he said.
New Boards
Noting that the highway department has been repairing the bridge with ply wood for the past year or so, Carson Johnson maintained that replacing three or four boards will leave the bridge in “as good a shape as it’s been for eight or ten years. Why can’t you do that?” he asked.
“What you don’t See from the surface is the deterioration underneath...the wearing down of the steel beams,” Askew answered. He emphasized again that highway department policy mandated the bridge he upgraded to the legal load limit.
Johnson countered that the boards could have been replaced “in the time it took seven or eight men to build that barricade” closing the road.
Askew explained again that the decision centered around the “ultimate fate of the bridge” not replacing boards on the deck.
With the bridge closed, the rescue squad must waste between four and five minutes in answering calls, according to Joe Borkowski. “That’s the difference between life and death for many people,” he claimed. He also asked Askew if the highway department was prepared for the extra traffic load at the blind curve by the Exxon station corner should the bridge remain closed. “There are already accidents there.” he noted.
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