LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) - The I-10 Calcasieu River Bridge was closed to eastbound traffic for several hours Tuesday while crews made emergency repairs.
It all started when a driver noticed something out of the ordinary as she crossed the bridge. Her observant eye may have averted something much worse. Flexible Metal Joint
State DOTD got a call from Westlake police about a possible problem with an expansion joint. Police said a woman driving over the bridge noticed a piece of metal sticking up and called to report it.
Expansion joints allow the bridge concrete to expand and contract with temperatures.
Eastbound traffic was quickly shut down over the bridge and drivers were forced to use an alternate route such as I-210 or through Moss Bluff to get to Lake Charles.
More than 40 years ago there was a huge crash on this same bridge when an expansion joint popped up and punctured a truck’s diesel fuel tank. That turned one side of the bridge into a slippery slope.
A young Randy Roach, who would later serve as a state representative and mayor of Lake Charles for 17 years, was one of the attorneys involved in later litigation.
“Since the bridge, the Calcasieu River Bridge, is under the exclusive maintenance and control of the State of Louisiana, then since a defect in the bridge punctured the diesel tank and caused the diesel fuel to spill, then we’re contending that they are strictly liable for that defect,” Roach said in a follow-up story.
In the 1981 crash, three people died and the pileup involved 26 vehicles. It’s possible the woman who called Westlake police about the metal sticking up may have saved somebody.
Here is a link to the report of the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigated the pileup on Aug. 27, 1981.
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