Collapsed York County bridge: ‘All of us knew this would happen sooner or later’
An errant motorist ran into this steel bridge on Ridge Road at Bentz Mill Road in Washington Township in the northwestern tip of York County, causing the bridge to collapse. York Daily Record/Sunday News photographer Paul Kuehnel captured this unusual photo. Background posts: PennDOT not selling the Brooklyn Bridge but lesser structures on market , York County photo collection adds to historical record and Once popular Ganoga Bridge now lightly used York County landmark.
Take another of the picturesque steel bridge off of the books in York County.
A driver who allegedly had too much to drink struck a half truss bridge over the North Branch of the Bermudian Creek near the Adams County line recently.
Truss bridges are the Tinkertoy type with overhead steel beams… .
PennDOT workers wade through Bermudian Creek to examine the collapse of a one-lane bridge.
The damaged bridge in Washington Township was a half truss, which means the sides are above the roadbed but not overhead. The straight beams in a truss bridge depend on each other. When one goes, other beams can be compromised, and PennDOT officials said the driver set off such a chain reaction.
According to a York Daily Record Sunday News story, the bridge, built in the 1930s, was to be replaced in 2011.
Area residents said they did not hear the unusual event of a bridge falling into a creek.
As for the loss of a bridge-engineering style that is becoming a thing of the past, most said they weren’t too bothered by the loss.
“All of us knew this would happen sooner or later,” one resident said.
(Local bridge enthusiast John Fishel inventoried remaining steel bridges as outlined in the post: Picturesque steel bridges going way of covered predecessors).
