MISSISSIPPI BRIDGE TO CLOSE FOR REPAIRS ON WEDNESDAY

Most people who live in the region will at most be inconvenienced when the Mississippi River bridge is closed to traffic during part of the day Wednesday. But for those who live on the Illinois side of the river, the bridge is more than a convenience.

"I always call it my lifeline," says Carolyn Thomas, who lives in East Cape Girardeau and works in Cape Girardeau.

The bridge will be closed to traffic from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Wednesday to allow workers to make repairs to a floor beam.

Traffic on the bridge was reduced to one lane during much of the day Monday and will be again today from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Missouri Department of Transportation predicts delays of 10 to 15 minutes.

Traffic on the bridge again will be reduced to one lane two hours before the closure Wednesday and for two hours after the closure ends.

Provisions have been made to allow emergency vehicles to cross the bridge during the closure, said Randy Hitt, area engineer for MoDOT.

People who must cross the Mississippi River during those hours will have to drive to the bridges at Chester or Cairo.

Thomas is the East Cape Girardeau village clerk and manages the East Cape Campgrounds and Mobile Home Park. She usually makes the trip to and from her job with the Division of Family Services in downtown Cape Girardeau in about five minutes. The journey took more than half an hour Monday, she said.

Some people at the mobile home park work for Procter & Gamble but leave for work before the closure will occur and will return afterward, Thomas said.

She compared the bridge being closed to the minor panic that leads people to buy milk and bread before a snowstorm. "It's just the thought of knowing you can't go home," she said.

"What if there should be something wrong, like an emergency, at home and you couldn't get across?" she wondered.

Because East Cape Girardeau lacks even a convenience store, people who live there have to cross the bridge to buy almost everything -- including milk or bread.

Except in cases of accidents, Hitt could not remember the last time the bridge had been closed.

Repairing a floor beam on the center line makes the closure necessary. A crack on one of the connections was found during routine maintenance.

"It's OK to drive on now, but if we don't repair it sometime in the future it will eventually break off," Hitt said.

A crack puts extra stress on surrounding areas and can have a ripple effect that turns a small job into a big one, Hitt said.

"Instead of a one-day repair it may be a three- or four-day repair."

Electrical signs informing motorists of the closure have been in place at the east and west entrances to the bridge since Friday, Hitt said. Additional signs are being placed on Highway 74 to notify trucks coming off Interstate 55 and at the intersection of Highways 146 and 3 in Illinois.

Still, he knows some drivers won't get the message or will forget about the closure.

"My concern is if we get a bunch of vehicles down there waiting and blocking traffic on William Street," he said.

He said the Cape Girardeau Police Department has been informed about the situation.

His advice: "Everybody use caution and watch for signing."

Purple Crackle bartender Gabby Johnson doesn't expect the closure to affect business much, even though it occurs on a day many lottery tickets are sold. "Most people get theirs early in the morning and later in the evening," he said.

Linda Mouser, whose husband is the East Cape Girardeau-McClure fire chief, said the closure will affect the sleeping habits of some residents who work in Cape Girardeau.

"The people I know that work there will go in before they close it and spend the night in Cape with friends or relatives," she said.