EVANSVILLE — An ongoing inspection by traffic engineers has the Indiana Department of Transportation anticipating some word this week on when the Oak Grove Road bridge over I-69 will reopen.
The state-maintained bridge has been closed since a vehicle carrying heavy construction equipment struck a bridge support beam just before 1 p.m. on Oct. 8. INDOT performed maintenance work on the bridge Thursday, which closed one southbound lane of I-69 on that day only. It was part of what INDOT calls an ongoing investigation by its engineers to ascertain how much weight the bridge can handle.
INDOT said it notified the Evansville Police Department about the bridge strike. No citiations have been issued as yet.
More: No word on how long Oak Grove bridge will be closed after vehicle strike
“We’ll go through the – basically, there’s a ‘damages to state property’ process that we’ll go through to recoup the money to fix the bridge,” said INDOT’s Southwest Indiana spokesman, Gary Brian.
The damage doesn’t look like anything got crushed or demolished — but Brian said, and Courier & Press photos show, that whatever hit the support beam essentially bent it. How that affects the bridge’s load grading is a matter for INDOT’s engineers to determine, Brian said.