Photo courtesy NC Department of Transportation.
By Erin Smith
The NC Department of Transportation has announced that NC 53 near White Oak has reopened. This is the first time the road has opened following Hurricane Florence.
Andrew Barksdale with the NC Department of Transportation said that the bridge on NC 53, which spans Ellis Creek in Bladen County, was reopened Sunday after the work to replace the bridge was completed. When Hurricane Florence damaged the roadway at this location, it was already under contract for a new bridge, according to Barksdale. The contractor adjusted the proposed work schedule in order to go ahead and to replace the bridge.
According to NC DOT records, the previous bridge was built in 1946, and it was deemed both structurally deficient and functionally obsolete prior to Hurricane Florence. Barksdale explained the bridge had remained safe to use, before the hurricane, but its condition was poor enough that it required more frequent maintenance and closures and its design was outdated.
“This bridge was one of several bridges already under contract to be replaced, but the schedule for replacement was accelerated after Hurricane Florence. Because of the extensive damage, we did not do repairs to a bridge we were about to replace, so this is the first time it has opened since the hurricane,” said Andrew Barksdale with the NC Department of Transportation.
The replacement of the bridge over Ellis Creek was one of seven bridges that was included in a contract awarded in July 2016 to Smith-Rowe LLC of Mount Airy. The original contract calls for the replacement of one bridge in Cumberland County, two bridges in Bladen County and four bridges in Robeson County for the amount of $5,487,873.50.
The second bridge in Bladen County in this contract calls for the replacement of a bridge on Mercer Mill-Brown Marsh Road.The completion date for all seven bridge projects in all three counties is estimated to be January 2020.
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