More than eight percent of Mississippi’s 16,000 bridges are structurally deficient, according to a report from the National Bridge Index.
Since the I-40 Hernando-DeSoto Bridge across the Mississippi River connecting Tennessee and Arkansas was shut down in early May after a fractured beam was discovered, officials are turning their attention to the condition of bridges in surrounding states.
A study from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), which states approximately one in 10 bridges in Mississippi are deficient, recently graded Mississippi a D+ on its infrastructure report card. The report said more than 42 percent of the bridges across the state are at least 40 years old. In 2018, 37 percent of bridges were deemed to be in fair or poor condition.
According to the Mississippi Department of Transportation, only about two and a half percent of the nearly 6,000 bridges it maintains are in less than average condition.
MDOT currently has two bridge replacement projects underway in Tate County, including the Hickahala Creek Bridges across I-55 between the Senatobia and Coldwater exits.
The $52.5 million project to replace the Hickahala Creek Bridges, which were built in in 1959, has an expected completion date in spring of 2022. Both were listed on the “Most Traveled Structurally Deficient Bridges in Mississippi” by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) National Bridge Inventory.
An estimated 15,500 vehicles cross the Hickahala Creek Bridges daily, according to FHWA.
Two other bridges constructed in the 1950s that cross Arkabutla and Strayhorn Creeks on State Route 3 in western Tate County are currently being replaced. The $9.7 million project will be completed this summer.
MDOT said it conducts inspections every two years on most bridges and every year on high-traffic bridges. The FHWA report said the state has identified needed repairs on 7,377 bridges at an estimated cost of $2.5 billion.
On its website, the ASCE says that Mississippi has 17,072 bridges. More than 400 timber pile bridges have been closed to the public since 2018, when the federal government determined these structures had been insufficiently inspected and posed a risk to the traveling public.
To address safety concerns, the Mississippi Legislature convened for a special session in August 2018 and voted to provide approximately $100 million annually for bridge maintenance and rehabilitation.
