Southland bridge out

City taking advantage of casino closure to complete repairs

By JOHN RECH

news@theeveningtimes.com

“The deck has failed due to the construction work going on around Southland right now,” said West Memphis City Engineer Amanda Hicks. “I can’t be certain, but unexpectedly the deck fell in.”

The deck on the bridge over Ten Mile Bayou Diversion running in front of the casino and under Ingram Boulevard cracked and slumped in the center lane. With heavy construction equipment on site at Southland experts speculated an overweight load damaged the bridge top.

The city engineer said it was a bad thing but couldn’t have happened under better circumstances. Traf_c on the bridge has been much lighter than normal because the governor temporarily closed the casino under COVID-19 health precautions. Second, the city had the exact sized replacement decks in stock. The bridge is the same size as the failed bridge on Redding Street. That bridge was set for a deck replacement but the pilings failed during renovation and the Redding Bridge was redesigned for a box culvert design. That piling failure rendered the pre-cast decking obsolete, until now.

Having the decks in place saved up to three months waiting for the cement to cure and be strong enough for bridge traf_c. Hicks said the precast decks saved the city a lot of money and work was expected to begin straight of away.

“We can use the exact same beams we had for the Redding Bridge,” said Hicks. “They are already paid for. We can use them to replace the ones on Ingram. We’ll have a bridge that can handle somewhat heavier traf_c.”

A few modi_cations were needed to make it _t.

“We’ll have to bore it for the right _tting,” said Hicks.

Council unanimously approved the $40,000 retro_t.

Cracked decking on the Ten Mile Bayou Diversion Bridge in front of Southland Casino and Racing at Ingram Boulevard forced a special city council meeting to appropriate funding to fix the bridge. Repairs were set to begin immediately weather permitting and won’t require shutting down two way traffic during the repairs.

Photo by John Rech