Contractor hopes to finish repairs to Emerson Bridge before winter

The Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge at Cape Girardeau continues to undergo cable and mortar repairs that have prompted the closing of two traffic lanes since mid-May.

The nearly $1.65 million project involves clamping rubber sleeves around the steel cables anchored in the concrete bridge towers and making mortar repairs to the towers, said Ron Robertson, senior construction inspector with the Missouri Department of Transportation.

Robertson and other MoDOT officials said Monday the bridge, which opened in December 2003, is in good shape.

“This is routine maintenance,” Robertson said.

The work, which began more than three months ago, could be finished by November, said Andy Meyer, district construction and materials manager for MoDOT.

Workers with Fricke Management & Contracting hang from platforms Monday as they do cable and mortar repair to the pillars of the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge in Cape Girardeau.Laura Simon

But completion, he said, depends on the weather.

“We just need warm, dry days,” Meyer said.

If not finished before winter, the project will be put on hold until spring, he said.

Concrete barriers that have closed two outside traffic lanes to make room for the construction work will be moved back to the shoulders of the road and those lanes reopened to traffic for winter if the project remains unfinished, Meyer said.

Traffic would be reduced to two lanes again in the spring when work would resume.

Meyer and Robertson said the contractor, Fricke Management & Contracting of Murphysboro, Illinois, is working to finish the product before winter weather sets in.

Meyer said the contractor is taking a “very aggressive approach” to get the repairs completed.

Robertson said the contractor had been working on the bridge repairs four days a week.

Workers now will be on the job five days a week.

A MoDOT inspection of the bridge uncovered the need to make repairs. Meyer said.

“This is why we inspect the bridge on a regular basis,” he said.

But he said the bridge deck is in good shape, and there is no risk of any structural failure.

Meyer said the repair work involves crews working on platforms high above the bridge deck.

“It is time-consuming. It is slow,” Meyer said of the repairs.

The Mississippi River span, named after late congressman Bill Emerson, cost about $100 million to build.

Repairs to the nearly 13-year-old bridge are necessary because of “normal wear and tear,” Meyer said.

“It doesn’t suggest a problem with the design or the construction,” he said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3641

Pertinent address:

Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge, Cape Girardeau, Mo.