Yesterday I arrived in the balmy city of Owensboro KY to inspected the Glover H. Cary Bridge. The carries Indiana 161 and Kentucky 2262 over the Ohio River. Today we began our inspection of the truss starting at node 0. By the end of Day 1 we reached node 20 on the upper chord with two teams and node 24 on the downstream lower chord. With a high temperature of 93 degrees we were spent and my right hand had begun to cramp up. The truss makes great use of solar panels for powering the lighting, which were not on during inspection hours for safety. All of our climbers are now SPRAT certified and we are looking forward to many more climbing projects coming up at the end of the summer.
Here is the bridges information from Wikipedia:
The Glover H. Cary Bridge is a continuous truss bridge that spans the Ohio River between Owensboro, Kentucky and Spencer County, Indiana. It was named for the late U.S. Congressman Glover H. Cary (1885–1936), and opened to traffic in September 1940. It was originally a toll bridge, but tolls were discontinued in 1954.
The bridge was funded through a $1.03 million federal grant, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program, and public fundraising efforts. At first, the bridge connected Kentucky Highway 75 to Indiana Highway 75; in 1954, Kentucky 75 was redesignated U.S. Highway 431 and Indiana 75 became U.S. Highway 231.
The bridge was closed temporarily for a day and a half the weekend of March 13, 2011, due to the need for emergency repairs to the bridge deck with traffic temporarily detoured over the William H. Natcher Bridge. Following that emergency repair, transportation officials pressed ahead with planning and design on a full-depth deck rehab that was already scheduled for bidding in April 2011.
Following the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota in August 2007, Kentucky officials (including Governor Ernie Fletcher) sought to reassure motorists that Kentucky's bridges are safe by conducting a special safety review of all long-span bridges at that time. The Cary Bridge was subject to a detailed biennial inspection in August 2008. Kentucky and Indiana highway officials conducted a joint walk-through inspection of the structure on September 22, 2008.
On July 5, 2011, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet closed the bridge to all traffic for a $3 million partial rehab of the bridge deck after a large hole developed in the concrete driving surface. Hall Contracting of Louisville was the prime contractor on the 3-month project. The project, which saw 40% of the bridge's deck replaced, was completed and the bridge reopened to traffic on September 30, 2011—three days prior to the October 3 deadline imposed by KYTC on the contra
Prior to its reopening, the bridge was opened to pedestrians and bicyclists for "Bridge Day" on Sept. 30; thousands of visitors crossed the 72-year-old span between the hours of 8:00 AM and 6:00 PM, when crews began preparing to reopen the bridge to auto traffic, which occurred at 6:30 PM.
