Caltrans Sent Several Other Big Rigs Over Failed Bridge

Caltrans permit writers routed at least six overweight trucks over a temporary bridge near Lompoc before it collapsed last week, unaware that the road had weight restrictions or that a temporary structure was even in place, sources in the agency said Thursday.

The two-lane bridge on Highway 246 had been open for two weeks when it collapsed dramatically Oct. 21 just seconds after a truck drove across that weighed more than twice the bridge’s capacity. A Caltrans spokeswoman told local newspapers that Caltrans employees had inspected the bridge just hours before its collapse and found nothing wrong.

State Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana), who has headed a legislative inquiry into problems in the agency’s troubled permitting office, said he believes Caltrans will be found responsible for the bridge failure.

The cause of the mishap appears to be a major communication breakdown between those in charge of overseeing the bridge and the permit office responsible for safely routing oversized trucks on the state’s highways.

According to the bridge’s New Jersey-based manufacturer, construction plans show that the bridge could hold trucks of up to 40 tons under ordinary circumstances. The truck that crossed the bridge just before it collapsed weighed at least twice that amount.

The bridge manufacturer, Acrow Corp. of America, said that heavier trucks could safely cross only if they traveled at speeds of 5 mph or less, stayed to the center of the bridge and were the only vehicles on the structure at the time they crossed.

Caltrans officials said they could not comment on the accident and referred all calls to the state Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, which is still investigating.

Bill Killeen, Acrow president, said his firm asked Caltrans whether it should strengthen the bridge to support heavy trucks but was told it wouldn’t be necessary because speed restrictions would be in place for such loads. In 50 years of business, the company has never before had a bridge collapse, he said.

If Caltrans officials overseeing the bridge knew of the restrictions, that information was never given to the permit office, which relies on up-to-date reports on road conditions to make permitting decisions, Caltrans sources said. The California Highway Patrol determined the truck driver had met the conditions of the permit and did not issue a citation.

Limits Were News to Permit Writers

The overweight truck that crossed just before the collapse was not the only heavy load to be routed across the temporary bridge, Caltrans sources said.

Permits issued for that route show that at least six trucks heavier than 40 tons had been allowed to use the route, sources say. None of those permits included any special conditions for crossing, because permit writers weren’t made aware that a temporary bridge was in place, those sources said. High speeds combined with heavy weights produce great stress on a bridges that use concrete supports like the one near Lompoc, according to structural engineers.

“Six trucks going over the bridge is significant,” said Craig Newtson, who teaches structural engineering at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. “At high rates of speeds, those trucks coming on and off the bridge can cause damage that you wouldn’t necessarily see with just a visual inspection.”

The last of the trucks passed over the bridge on Oct. 21 hauling a mammoth excavator and barely made it across. The driver, Jon Milby of Goleta-based D&J; Trucking, was going close to the posted 55-mph speed limit because the Caltrans permit he was issued didn’t require that he slow down, according to his daughter, a company employee. Charlene Milby said her father felt the bridge shake and sway the second he pulled onto it.

“It’s probably a good thing he went as fast as he did,” she said. “He looked out his rearview mirror and saw it had collapsed and called me in a total panic.”

A vehicle driving directly behind the truck dropped about 30 feet into a creek bed as the bridge swayed, and then buckled in what witnesses say resembled an inverted drawbridge. The driver was not seriously injured.

CHP Officers Amazed No One Was Killed

California Highway Patrol officers who were at the scene say it was miraculous no one was killed and were thankful it didn’t occur at night along the unlit stretch of rural highway.

Dunn, the state legislator, wants the Lompoc accident reviewed as part of an expanded inquiry into Caltrans permitting errors that will focus on accidents caused by trucks that are too wide or too heavy for roads on which they’ve been directed.

At least 33 times in the last 3 1/2 years, permit writers responsible for safely routing oversized trucks on the highways have sent trucks slamming into bridges too low for them, according to records reviewed since a fatal July accident in Anaheim that was caused by a bad permit.

At a public hearing earlier this month, two permit writers from the San Bernardino office warned that reforms since the death of 36-year-old Tam Trong Tran of Westminster didn’t go far enough. In particular, they cited the kinds of problem that occurred just weeks later in Lompoc.

The permit writers told legislators more accidents were certain to occur in the time it will take to modernize the way they route trucks, which now is based on memory, manual maps and a database that its creator estimates is only 60% complete.

Caltrans officials have said it will take up to three years to install the type of computerized system already in place elsewhere in the nation. This year the state will issue about 200,000 permits to trucks longer, wider, taller and heavier than the law otherwise allows on the highway.