MoDOT urges patience on Chester bridge closing, Highway 3 detours due to flooding

The Mississippi River bridge at Chester, Illinois, will remain closed to traffic until at least the middle of next week, according to a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Transportation.

MoDOT area engineer Brian Okenfuss said even after floodwaters leading up to the bridge on the Missouri side of the river recede, it will take several days to inspect it to be sure it has not sustained flood damage. The span is the only traffic bridge over the Mississippi between Cape Girardeau and St. Louis.

“The main message we’d like to get across is for people to be patient,” Okenfuss told the Southeast Missourian on Tuesday. “It is going to be closed more than just a day or two. It’s going to be a week or longer. I’d say seven to 10 days from now before it reopens.”

Okenfuss said his estimate is “subject to change” depending on the weather in the coming days.

“Any rain we get or rain St. Louis gets is going to affect that projection,” he said.

The bridge connecting Chester to Perryville, Missouri, via Highway 51, was closed Sunday afternoon as the Chester flood gage reached 44 feet. According to the National Weather Service, the river will crest in Chester at 46 feet on Saturday morning. Flood stage at Chester is 27 feet.

Meanwhile, flooding along Illinois Highway 3 south of Chester closed that highway north of Jackson County about two weeks ago. As a result, Missouri motorists who otherwise would have crossed the Mississippi River bridge at Chester or traveled along Highway 3 between Cape Girardeau and Chester must now either find alternate routes on county roads in Jackson and Randolph counties or they have to travel north on Interstate 55 to Interstate 255, cross the Jefferson Barracks Bridge in south St. Louis County and then travel south on Highway 3 to Chester.

“There really are no alternate routes,” Okenfuss noted. “It’s a big deal with the Chester bridge has to close because it causes a significant detour for everyone.”

Craig Mills of Cape Girardeau is a guard at Menard Correctional Center in Chester. He normally drives to Perryville and crosses the bridge at Chester when he goes to work, but now must navigate the detours in Southern Illinois to avoid the Highway 3 closure.

“I use the Cape bridge to Highway 3 north to the junction with Route 151 to Ava then on to Chester. It’s doubled my commute miles,” he said.

“This is a really big deal for people who have to go back and forth across the river,” said Okenfuss of the bridge closure. “There are a lot of folks who live in Missouri and work in Illinois and vice versa at places like Menard (Correctional Center) and Gilster Mary Lee in Chester and at TG Missouri in Perryville.”

A spokeswoman at the Randolph County Sheriff’s Department in Chester said people from the Illinois side of the river have made arrangements to stay in Missouri until the bridge reopens.

“We have a lot of people from Chester who work at TG and many of them are staying at a motel in Perryville,” she said.

According to Okenfuss, an average of 6,600 vehicles a day normally cross the Mississippi River bridge at Chester. In comparison, the bridge at Cape Girardeau has an average daily traffic count of approximately 11,000 vehicles.

In Cape Girardeau, the Mississippi River stood at just over 44.6 feet as of midafternoon Tuesday on its way to a predicted 46-foot crest by Saturday morning, according to the National Weather Service. The forecast is for the crest to remain at 46 feet at Cape Girardeau until Sunday morning when a gradual lowering of the river stage will begin. Food stage in Cape Girardeau is 32 feet.