TxDOT crew repairs Wharton river bridge
By BARRY HALVORSON news@leader-news.com

Drivers looking to head south out of Wharton by crossing the Richmond Road bridge found their way blocked for most of Tuesday as a crew from the Texas Department of Transportation was doing a routine inspection of the bridge.

The path across the south-bound lane of the bridge was blocked from around 9:30 a.m. into the afternoon by what Wharton TxDOT Maintenance Supervisor Richard Zahn described as a "snooper" truck.

"It's similar to a bucket truck but it has arms that extend over the side and underneath the bridge so we can examine that area up close," he said.

"In this case, we had to close the entire bridge to traffic because we had to work inside the trestle area. If we had been working on the north-bound bridge, we could have set it up closing only one lane to allow traffic through the area."

The bridge was damaged in late March when a Victoria Well Service truck hauling an oversized load of oilfield equipment bumped the sides of the bridge and eventually snagged on the structure temporarily blocking traffic.

At the time, TxDOT officials inspected the damage and said that it was mostly cosmetic, a finding that Wednesday's inspection confirmed.

"Everything is good," Zahn said. "The truck hit the guard rails. The damage was mostly cosmetic and we'll be able to repair it. The inspection now was just a coincidence."

Zahn said all on-system bridges, those located on Interstate, U.S. and state highways long with Texas and farm-to-market roads receive a full inspection on a rotating basis every two years.

"They're in the area doing inspections of state bridges along with some county (offsystem) bridges here and in the El Campo area," Zahn said.

"I know the north-bound lane is scheduled to be inspection, but I don't have an exact date for it."