MO-DOT will immediately inspect 11 bridges

By Adam Allington, KWMU

St. Louis, MO – The Missouri Department of transportation announced plans today to immediately inspect eleven bridges similar to one that collapsed yesterday in Minneapolis.

Of Missouri's 10,000 bridges only 11 are the same design, called a "Deck Arch Truss". Trusses are long metal support beams under the deck of the bridge.

Jeff Briggs is a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Transportation.

"Now that we've found all of them we're going to start inspecting them beginning today and those inspections are already underway," says Briggs.

"We're going to double check them and make sure that everything that's in place and makes it safe is where it needs to be."

MO-DOT says most river bridges in Missouri have some form of overhead support.

They estimate that it could take inspection crews up to five weeks to complete all of the inspections.

"No one knows yet what caused the collapse up in Minnesota, but once we're able to determine that it will help us even further. We will look for that specific thing and make sure that none of the bridges in Missouri will have that problem."

St. Louis County has two deck-truss bridges. One at the outer road of Interstate 44 at the Meremec River as well as the Boone Bridge on Highway 40.

Of the bridges in Missouri's state highway system, 1600 are deemed "structurally deficient." Another 12-hundred are "functionally obsolete."

Bridges on the MO-DOT System with Deck Truss Spans
Bridge Division August 2, 2007

*Note: The Eads Bridge could be considered a deck truss but it is maintained by the City of St. Louis