Oklahoma Highway Patrol said on Saturday that it had to temporarily close an Arkansas River bridge to traffic after bridge pilings were hit during a collision involving barges on the waterway.
The South U.S. Highway 59 south of Sallisaw was closed for about an hour “due to a barge striking the bridge,” the state’s Department of Transport said in an update on X, formerly Twitter.
“Engineers will conduct an inspection, which they estimate could last several hours,” the department said.
Photos of the pilings hit by the barge shared by Oklahoma Highway Patrol show that surface layers of the concrete near the base of two pillars had been chipped away in the collision with a barge.
According to Jonathan Teague, director of Sequoyah County of Emergency Management, the left side of one of the barges hit the bridge during the collision.
Fortunately, the bridge was cleared for reopening by the department’s engineers sooner than expected.
The engineers reported that all the damage was only superficial, as the bridge was designed to be able to take a hit from the river barges, Mr. Teague told local news outlets.
“Engineers inspected the structure and found it safe to reopen,” the department said in an update.
(L) Damage is seen on a bridge pillar and (R) on a barge after it struck the bridge at the Arkansas River in Sallisaw, Okla., on March 30, 2024. (Dayton Holland via AP)
There were no reports of injuries on the highway or the barge.
Troopers closed US-59 south at about 1:25 p.m. after receiving a call reporting the bridge strike, highway patrol spokesperson Sarah Stewart said.
Traffic was diverted from the area to routes using the I-40, SH-2, and SH-9 for structural engineering checks.
The news came as engineers worked Saturday to lift a section of twisted steel from the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland after it crumpled into the Patapsco River as a massive cargo ship crashed into one of its main supports.
