MIDLAND, MI - State road crews are working quickly to reinforce the flood-damaged U.S. 10 bridge over Sanford Lake, with the goal of reopening two lanes by late Thursday. The bridge is near Midland on a major highway leading into northern Michigan.
The bridge suffered some damage after the nearby Edenville Dam collapsed in the wake of heavy rainfall, leading to the failure of the nearby Sanford Dam. MDOT photos before the repairs show parts of the roadway missing and land under the bridge partially washed away. Broken trees and exposed sand still stretch across the Sanford Lake lake bed as the crew worked on Tuesday, June 2.
MDOT expects to open two lanes on the eastbound side of the bridge to traffic, one lane in each direction, by late Thursday, and hopes to fully reopen the bridge by Thursday, June 18, said Jocelyn Hall, MDOT Bay Region spokeswoman.
“At that point, it’ll basically be back to business as usual for U.S. 10 drivers,” Hall said.
Both sides of the bridge suffered damage from the floodwaters and debris carried with it, with the westbound, upstream side of the bridge taking the most. Crews are using a combination of large and small stones to reinforce exposed supports underneath. The winning bid during an emergency contracting process was for $1.78 million, Hall said.
Up to 23 roads and bridges were closed at the peak of the post-flooding emergency, Hall said. Some roadways only needed water to recede, but many required repairs, including bridges across the Tittabawassee River on M-46, Tittabawassee Road and Freeland Road in Saginaw County, she said.
The repairs to U.S.10 are the most extensive needed among roads damaged by the flooding so far, Hall said, with future work on M-30 bridges destroyed during the floods likely to eclipse that.
Of all roads closed, the U.S. 10 freeway has the highest number of daily vehicles regularly and on weekends, Hall said. Commuters were forced to take alternate routes along local roadways which aren’t built to withstand that amount of traffic, she said. Getting the bridge back up and running will limit damage and further repairs to those local roads.
“People who live in Sanford may have an exponentially longer commute trying to get around this closure,” Hall said. “That’s one of the reasons that it is such a priority.”
Read more:
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Scavenging flood debris in Midland is against city ordinance