8/10/93
By: Bev Darr
Courier-Post Staff Writer

The Mark Twain Memorial Bridge at Hannibal will reopen by 6 a.m. Wednesday or sooner, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation.

The bridge has been closed 82 days, since July 2, when flood waters covered the Illinois roads near the bridge approach, creating hardship for persons who live on one side of the river and work or have other needs on the other.

A portion of U.S. 36 near the Illinois bridge approach was still covered with water Monday, but it is quickly receding, and an IDOT road repair crew is working today to complete whatever is needed to open the road, according to John Burke, IDOT chief of information in Springfield, Ill.

"The water is going down real well," Burke said, and the bridge could be open before 6 a.m. but that time was set to accommodate the commuters. "We will be doing everything we can to make it serviceable, including temporary repairs, such as patching the roadway with rock or asphalt. If need be, we can come back after the roadway is open and make more permanent repairs. It may not be a pristine roadway at this time, but it is usable, and we want to accommodate the folks on both sides of the river."

As his crew made last-minute road repairs near the bridge approach, Roger Wright, IDOT District 6 engineer, explained they were not planning to build up the road with rock, because "the water is receding ‹ it is going down quite dramatically. We think by tonight the pavement will be dry. We are getting all the debris off the road and shoulder and fixing a few potholes." On Monday there was still between six and seven inches of water on 1,000 feet of U.S. 36, Burke said.

Wright said his crew is in the process of fixing one major hole. "This was 11 feet deep and cut clear through the road near the Sny Creek bridge, about a mile from the river bridge. We are in the process of fixing it."

Illinois 336, which connects U.S. 36 with Quincy, Ill., had also been closed by high water but was reopened Friday, Burke said.

Repair work on the local bridge began in June, before the flood closed the structure. The work was finished while it was closed, according to Dick Jones, District 3 engineer with the Missouri Highway and Transportation Department.

"We have done all that we wanted to do and are doing some extra things that we had not counted on," he said. "Whenever Illinois is ready to open the road, we are ready to open the bridge."

Describing the work, Jones said, "We did a lot of repairs to the floor, and we put an asphalt surface over all the repair work that we have done."

The two bridges at Quincy will remain closed longer, and today water is being pumped from the part of U.S. 54 at the railroad underpass, Jones said.

The Quincy Memorial Bridge was closed July 1; the Bayview Bridge was open until July 16.

Before the water could be pumped out of the railroad underpass on U.S. 54, a levee was built around this portion of the road.

"There is seven or eight feet of water in the railroad underpass," Jones said. We have hauled a lot of rock to build levees to isolate the underpass. We started pumping the water out at 3 o'clock this morning."

Major repairs are needed to the highways in the area, he said. "We don't know what repairs are needed at the underpass. But there are places where big chunks of pavement are several hundred feet away from where it used to be."