On Monday, the Sunflower County Board of Supervisors was informed of five new bridge closures plus one additional bridge on Kemp Road that had to be reclosed, because someone had tossed the barricades into a ditch.
The new bridge closures are on: East Paxton Road, Adair, which is south of MS 442 on the Leflore County line; Cemetery/Oswalt Road in District 4, outside of Ruleville; Baltman Road, near Lombardy Road; and Tindall Road. Neither of these closures was deemed to be a crucial hindrance to travel.
County Engineer Ron Cassada, who is also the county’s representative when it comes to bridge inspections, said there are already 23 bridges closed with the possibility of others being deemed unsafe as the National Bridge Inspection Team conducts its inspections over the next couple of weeks. Only 14 of the county’s woodpile bridge structures are left open but railcars are being installed in some of the closed sites so they can reopen sooner.
Cassada said all bridge inspections for all of the bridges in the county are paid for with federal money, and he has a contract with the county to inspect all bridges with the exception of the wooden bridges. This year the funds were broken out by regions and the inspections were paid for with federal highway money through state aid.
He was notified by state aid that subcontractors, who are under contract with state aid, would be coming into the county to do inspections over the next two weeks. He said they follow the same procedure as he does, once they find a critical “find,” they fill out a report, the only difference is they contact state aid and state aid contacts Cassada.
From there Cassada contacts the road managers and provides them with a report, which satisfies federal highway regulations on how it is to be done. The road managers are then given a specified time to do temporary closures and up to 45 days to initiate permanent closure procedure. He said everything has to follow certain procedures or the county could lose its federal funding.
“They are doing an extremely detailed analysis of these bridges,” Cassada said.
