Rick Mongler was surprised to find a gaping hole in a bridge near his Audrain County home following the hard rain last week.
“You look down and think ‘gosh, I shouldn’t be standing here,’ …
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![A hole opened and material from the footing of a bridge on Audrain Road 350 washed out after heavy rains last week, forcing the county to close the structure for repairs. [Brian Haeffner]](https://beta.creativecirclecdn.com/mexicoledger/original/20210723-135209-Bridge%201.jpg)
Rick Mongler was surprised to find a gaping hole in a bridge near his Audrain County home following the hard rain last week.
“You look down and think ‘gosh, I shouldn’t be standing here,’ ” he said. “We were lucky no one drove over that side.”
Audrain County engineer Brian Haeffner reports that water had been eroding material at the bottom of an abutment and the heavy rainfall finally washed it out. The county instantly closed the bridge, which is on Audrain County Road 350.
Although semi trailers occasionally use the road, Haeffner said the bridge was not in danger of collapse. He inspected the structure along with engineers from the Missouri Department of Transportation.
Haeffner noted that the county is able to draw on funds from the Small Structures Improvement Program for emergency repairs, despite the bridge falling just outside the defined limits of a small structure.
The countywide quarter-cent sales tax that supports the program in up for renewal on the April 6 ballot. The tax has been in place since 2016.
The small structures program identifies bridges on county roads that are less than 20 feet in length for the purpose of replacement, repair and necessary maintenance. More than 700 such structures exist in the county.
If approved, the ballot measure would renew the tax for 10 years, with the funding specified for the replacement of small road structures and maintenance of bridges.
Since 2016, funds from the tax have allowed the county to replace 60 small bridges. Earlier this year the county commissioners approved a contract worth $27,500 for construction of a bridge on Audrain Road 525.
There is no federal assistance available for structures less than 20 feet in length on county roads.
“Small structures are just as important as large ones,” Presiding Commissioner Steve Hobbs said as work on Road 525 was getting underway. “Agriculture is such a big part of our economy, we need to keep goods and services flowing.”
Haeffner and his team have identified 549 small structures that still require some level of work.
“Small bridges are more important than you think,” Mongler said. “The one thing Audrain County has going for them is the bridge program.”
The county began repair work on the damaged Road 350 bridge shortly after closing the structure to traffic.
Haeffner said bridges in the county do not suffer that kind of damage often. “But with small structures, there’s more of them so we see it more,” he added.
