One of the deadliest bridge catastrophes in modern history struck in West Virginia on Dec. 15, 1967, when the 2,200-foot Silver Bridge in Point Pleasant, amid rush-hour traffic, collapsed into the Ohio River.
The disaster, which killed 46 people, was triggered by a stress crack in one link of a chain of steel eyebars supporting the bridge from above.
The tragedy led to the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968, which established federal bridge inspection standards still in use.
“There’s not one single bridge engineer in the [Division] of Highways, not one, that doesn’t know that story, that doesn’t have that kind of memorabilia on their wall,†West Virginia Department of Transportation Secretary Jimmy Wriston told the Joint Legislative DOT Accountability Oversight Commission, at a Jan. 9 meeting of the panel of state lawmakers.
West Virginia’s bridge problem
However, more than 56 years since the Silver Bridge disaster, West Virginia still has a bridge problem.
The in Baltimore on Tuesday, after a powerless cargo ship rammed into it and killed two highways workers and left four others missing and presumed dead, has renewed scrutiny of the integrity of bridges in West Virginia and throughout the country.
In recent years, West Virginia has had the highest percentage of structurally deficient bridges in the country. Last year, West Virginia ranked second in percentage of area covered by structurally deficient bridges.
Of the Mountain State’s 7,323 bridges, 1,442, or 19.7%, were structurally deficient according to an American Road & Transportation Builders Association analysis of Federal Highway Administration data. The association is a transportation construction industry group.
A bridge is deemed structurally deficient if there is substantial deterioration of its deck, supports or other major components. Such bridges aren’t categorically unsafe, but they require substantial investment through replacement or rehabilitation, and they’re more likely to prompt closures and weight restrictions.
In West Virginia, more than 3.6 million out of roughly 24.3 million daily bridge crossings — or 14.9% — occur over bridges that are structurally deficient, according to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association analysis.
Wriston delivered an update on bridge projects to the Joint Legislative DOT Accountability Oversight Commission at its Jan. 9 meeting that focused largely on river bridge crossings in the Northern Panhandle, which has seen many bridge closings in recent months due to infrastructural integrity concerns. Wriston said eight Northern Panhandle river bridge crossings have suffered from years of financial neglect.
“All eight of those bridges are in the conditions they’re in because of the decades and decades of underinvestment that we’ve made over years,†Wriston said.
But West Virginia is now positioned to benefit from a massive influx of federal funding support through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2021.
The state has been slated to receive $548 million in federal funding over five years to replace, repair and build bridges through the legislation. But signs of underinvestment and slow progress relative to other states have persisted in recent years, including since the infrastructure law’s passage.
W.Va. trails neighbors in committing US bridge funding
West Virginia had committed just 7% of $219.2 million of Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding to which it had access — as of June 2023 — to 50 bridge projects, according to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association analysis.
West Virginia’s 7% clip of infrastructure law funding that is committed to projects was lowest among all neighboring states, well below Pennsylvania and Virginia at 57.5% and 29.1%, respectively.
The Mountain State’s percentage of Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding committed to projects also was lower than the nation’s second- and third-highest states in clips of structurally deficient bridges behind West Virginia, Iowa (16%) and South Dakota (13.8%).
Meanwhile, West Virginia’s percentage of structurally deficient bridges has declined at a slower rate in recent years than every neighboring state but Kentucky, per the American Road & Transportation Builders Association analysis.
West Virginia’s number of structurally deficient bridges decreased 5.8% from 2019 to 2023, a clip outpaced by Virginia (18%), Ohio (14.1%), Pennsylvania (13.7%) and Maryland (7.7%).
Wriston told the Joint Legislative DOT Accountability Oversight Commission in January that bridge ratings don’t account for lag time in reporting work completed on projects. Wriston said the DOT had just completed 26 bridges comprising roughly 8% of the square footage of bridge deck of the state’s bridges.
“So all of those bridges are in good condition now,†Wriston said. “So that’s going to move the metric.â€
The DOT did not respond to a request for comment.
Where are WV’s highest-traffic structurally deficient bridges
Federal standards generally require bridges to be inspected once every two years, but state and federal agencies must develop criteria to determine when inspection intervals are to be reduced based on factors such as:
- Structure type
- Design
- Condition
- Annual average daily traffic
Wriston told the commission most bridges are inspected annually and said 12 bridges in the state are inspected every three months.
“They have issues we need to monitor, and that’s what we’re doing,†Wriston said.
Rural arterial road bridges comprise the greatest area of structurally deficient bridges in West Virginia (93,905 square meters), followed by urban interstate bridges (82,541) and rural major collector bridges (73,880). Arterial roads include freeways and multilane highways that supplement the interstate system, while collector roads connect local roads with arterial thoroughfares for shorter distances at lower speeds.
West Virginia’s structurally deficient bridges with the highest number of daily crossings, per the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, were:
Interstate 64 eastbound over county routes 33/5
- in Putnam County: 64,400 daily crossings
- I-77 northbound and southbound over U.S. Route 60 in Kanawha County: 47,700
- U.S. Route 60 over Elk Creek and city streets in Harrison County: 47,600
- I-64 eastbound and westbound over Guyandotte River in Cabell County, county routes 60/52 and 26: 33,900 each way
- I-70 eastbound and westbound over Ohio River and city streets in Ohio County: 30,400
- I-64 Ramp B over W.Va. Route 25 in Kanawha County: 28,000
- W.Va. 14 over Little Kanawha River in Wood County: 27,421
- I-70 eastbound over Wheeling Creek and city streets in Ohio County: 27,010
- I-64 westbound over county route 29 and Rocky Step Run in Putnam County: 26,150
On Dec. 11, 2023, the DOT abruptly closed the Jennings Randolph Bridge for repairs, reopening it Jan. 8. The DOT later said a federally mandated inspection uncovered cracking in two welds on the steel bridge structure carrying U.S. 30 across the Ohio River between Chester, W.Va. and East Liverpool, Ohio.
The DOT said in a Jan. 8 news release announcing the bridge’s reopening that after the agency decided to close the bridge, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania-headquartered bridge inspection consultant Modjeski & Masters identified 18 additional internal defects on welds on the bridge. The defects needed to be repaired before reopening the bridge, the DOT said.
On Dec. 21, 2023, the DOT closed the 1,800-foot Market Street Bridge built in 1905 and connecting W.Va. 2 with Steubenville, Ohio after quarterly inspections revealed increasing deterioration in the span’s steel support cables.
State bridge inspectors found a bundle of wire on a steel support cable had deteriorated inside the cable anchorage. They put the bridge on a three-month inspection cycle in June 2022. The support cables kept deteriorating despite the DOT reducing the weight limit on the span to 3 tons, the agency said.
Last month, the DOT said the bridge is expected to reopen in late summer 2024.
“Lately, a big question is at what point do we close [a] bridge,†Wriston said to the commission. “That answer’s pretty straightforward. When a bridge is unsafe or unsuitable for use, we close the bridge. There is no such thing as an unsafe bridge being utilized by the public in West Virginia.â€
In June 2016, the DOT temporarily closed the Nitro-St. Albans Bridge (W.Va. 25) in Kanawha County after it was hit by a loose barge. No injuries were reported.
“We assessed it, and then we were able to open it right back up,†Wriston recalled.
Wriston said the average age of bridges in West Virginia is 46 years, just past the national average age of 45 for the 618,000 highway bridges in the National Bridge Inventory as of 2021, according to the Federal Highway Administration.
The DOT inspects municipal bridges not owned by state agencies, but not private bridges.
DOT head pleads for patience
Speaking before state lawmakers in January, Wriston — who took over as DOT secretary in 2021 after being appointed deputy secretary in 2019 following nearly a quarter-century in the agency — urged patience with the state’s bridge upgrades.
“I’ve been doing this for a little over two years now in this position,†Wriston said. “Thirty years is a lot to overcome.â€
State lawmakers have been supportive of the DOT and Wriston, applauding the DOT’s direction despite complaints from contractors about delays in receiving DOT payments and audits of the DOT’s Division of Highways by ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä-based certified public accounting firm Suttle & Stalnaker finding a wide range of financial deficiencies.
But generations removed from the Silver Bridge collapse, West Virginia is still looking for a bridge to steadier statistical ground when it comes to bridge safety — especially while Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act support lasts.
“Give us a chance,†Wriston said.
