Century-old bridge collapses; officials suspect snowplow

The plow truck could weigh 19 tons when filled with salt.

DYSART, Pa. (AP) — The state will review the inspection records of 216 bridges with designs similar to a 116-year-old, single-lane bridge that collapsed after a snowplow truck drove over it.

The 103-foot-long steel truss bridge failed Thursday night, and state transportation officials on Friday were trying to determine if the truck was too heavy for the decaying Cambria County span.

The bridge, which had significant deterioration, had a 12-ton weight limit, according to Pennsylvania Department of Transportation records. The plow truck weighs 8 tons empty, but could weigh up to 19 tons when fully loaded with salt, PennDOT spokesman Rich Kirkpatrick said.

“The question is how much salt was in it,” Kirkpatrick said Friday. “That’s what we’re looking at right now.”

The bridge collapsed around 9:20 p.m. Thursday, prompting closure of a rural road but causing no injuries, Kirkpatrick said.

The bridge, 15 feet above Clearfield Creek, was last inspected in July and “no unusual problems were found,” PennDOT said in a statement.

It’s a relatively low-traffic route,” Kirkpatrick said. “There was nothing on the bridge when it went down.”

About 270 vehicles per day used the bridge, which did not regularly carry emergency vehicles or school buses, Kirkpatrick said.

State inspectors had labeled the bridge structurally deficient — meaning various components had significant deterioration — and functionally obsolete, meaning its design was outdated.

“That’s not surprising given the bridge was built in 1891,” Kirkpatrick said.

The state-owned bridge was scheduled to be replaced in 2009, PennDOT said. A Uniontown engineer notified Clearfield Township that he is working on the construction plans, township secretary Lynne Thomas said.

Almost a quarter of Pennsylvania’s 25,000 state-owned bridges that measure 8 feet or longer are considered structurally deficient, according to department records. About 800 have weight or lane restrictions because of those deficiencies.

The bridge carried state Route 1012 over the creek at the border of Clearfield and Dean townships in Cambria County, about 75 miles east of Pittsburgh. PennDOT closed a section of the road to traffic and opened a 9-mile detour.

A local PennDOT bridge engineer was at the scene afterward and additional engineers were dispatched from Harrisburg, Kirkpatrick said.