Agreement allows bridge demolition

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Crews will resume chiseling concrete from a dangling section of the collapsed Interstate 40 bridge today after state officials and relatives for a family killed in the Arkansas River reached a compromise.

The Oklahoma Department of Transportation halted demolition of the collapsed section of the bridge near Webbers Falls for most of Thursday after a Muskogee judge granted the family a restraining order.

Lawyers representing the Arkansas family whose car plunged off the collapsed bridge last month want to hire their own inspectors to see whether there were problems with the bridge before it was struck by a barge. A section of the bridge toppled into the water May 26, killing 14 people.

Crews stopped working after the Muskogee district judge's order, but state transportation officials said the order was not valid because that court did not have jurisdiction. The family's attorneys moved the request to Oklahoma County, and by Thursday afternoon, they agreed that demolition could continue as long as their own inspectors could view each piece of rubble taken from the bridge.

"I believe that this is a good answer for everyone," said John Merritt, an attorney for the Arkansas family.

Pieces of concrete, including a pier still submerged in the river, will go to an undetermined site for viewing, said ODOT General Counsel Norman Hill. The family's investigators also will be allowed to inspect the rest of the undamaged bridge.

"We don't have anything to hide," Hill said.

The restraining order came with a lawsuit on behalf of the estate of James, Misty and 3-year-old Shae Johnson, of Lavaca, Ark. Attorneys are suing Mississippi-based companies that own the towboat and barge, as well as the captain of the towboat.

They said a confidential source told them the bridge piers were defective.

State officials repeatedly have defended the 35-year-old bridge, which was rated 67 out of 100 on its last inspection.

"This is pretty good -- 67 is probably pretty typical for a bridge of that age," said Bob Rusch, state bridge engineer.

Crews installed protective pier barriers on the downstream side of the navigation channel after a barge hit the bridge and cracked it in 1980, he said. There were no barriers on the upstream side, where the barge slammed into a pier last month, because they were not considered necessary, Rusch said.

He said state engineers will consider placing more pier barriers on bridges in the state's navigation channels.

Workers already have demolished the west end of the bridge, which sloped down an embankment after the collapse. They were working this week to remove pieces of the bridge section hanging into the water, resting on two anchored barges.

ODOT wants the bridge reconstructed by mid-August, said George Raymond, the state's construction engineer. He said the transportation department hopes to issue a contract by Wednesday.

Bidding companies will have to say how long it will take to complete the project, and it must be under 1,553 hours or 65 days. The company will be paid $6,000 per hour for every hour under bid. It will be penalized $6,000 per hour for tardiness, Raymond said.

Oklahoma also is suing towboat Capt. William Joe Dedmon, Vicksburg, Miss.-based Magnolia Marine Transport Co. and Ergon Inc. of Jackson, Miss.

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