Photo courtesy of the Oregon Department of Transportation
Workers remove a damaged concrete section of the bridge dating to its 1937 construction.
For a traveler, it’s a wish on the bucket list of awesome drives; for a business owner, it’s a transportation artery for goods transiting the West Coast; and for a local, it’s the twisting, climbing road that leads to everything.
But in August, milepost 39.5 on U.S. 101 was simply a tragedy waiting to happen.
Photo courtesy of the Oregon Department of Transportation
The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) got the call on Aug. 29 that something was amiss on the Necarney Creek Bridge near Manzanita. A section of the concrete guardrail and sidewalk on the 95-ft.-tall bridge had collapsed and, save for a damaged bit of steel rail, there was almost nothing preventing northbound vehicles from plunging over the side.
It appeared something had hit the bridge, but what and when?
“We can’t think of any other way it could have happened,” said David House, ODOT Region 2 spokesman. “Something had to hit the bridge really hard.”
ODOT sent an inspector, who confirmed what the caller had reported.
“The bridge is structurally sound,” House said. “The issue was almost no clearance to the edge. The guardrail was immobilized. It would be so easy to go off the bridge. This is the lifeline; the tourism and travel and the freight lifeline of the west coast from Canada to Mexico. It’s a very important route not just for the state, but the entire west coast. There is no detour in that area; it’s just rugged coastline in the forest.”
Constructed in 1937, the Necarney Creek Bridge was one of the first bridges built with steel girders and steel towers in Oregon, according to ODOT. Located in Oswald West State Park, “It heralded a period of structural steel bridges, which lasted until the 1960s.”
In 2008, the reinforced concrete and guardrail was strengthened with a tubular structure.
The bridge sits 95 ft. above Necarney Creek and is 602 ft. long, with its steepest slope in the curve 2.86 ft. from curb to curb. Traffic data from 2023 two mi. north of the bridge showed 5,358 vehicles traveled that section of road daily.
Now, as travelers nationwide prepared for one last hurrah of summer, ODOT went to work with an emergency repair plan.
“We have standing contracts with different contractors in different areas for emergency repairs like this. We ask those on the call list, ‘Are you available? Do you have the equipment? How quickly can you get to this?’ There is no time for a standard major bid process.”
In this case, Wildish Construction Co., headquartered in Eugene, Ore., was ready for the call. The project will cost somewhere between $750,000 and $1 million.
Photo courtesy of the Oregon Department of Transportation
NessCampbell Crane + Rigging provided the Link-Belt HTC-86100 (N3) with a telescoping boom and 39,500-lb. counterweight.
On Sept. 21, ODOT closed the highway for a planned 36-hour repair.
“We needed the full closure because the crane took up both lanes and the weight would be too much if we had both the crane and the traffic on the bridge,” House said.
The first task was to remove the damaged pieces, which were hanging by the old rebar.
“It was quite a delicate operation to make sure we could get those off of there safely without them falling down,” House said. “It actually went about an hour over 36 hours because it was a tricky operation getting the crane set up in a tight spot and detaching and lifting the concrete pieces dangling off the edge by their rebar. But it went well.
“And we hope to have the bridge repaired in about three more weeks but don’t expect to need a full closure again. We are lucky it didn’t happen in winter weather.” CEG
Lori Tobias
Lori Tobias is a journalist of more years than she cares to count, most recently as a staff writer for The Oregonian and previously as a columnist and features writer for the Rocky Mountain News. She is the author of the memoir, Storm Beat – A Journalist Reports from the Oregon Coast, and the novel Wander, winner of the Nancy Pearl Literary Award in 2017. She has freelanced for numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Denver Post, Alaska Airlines in-flight, Natural Home, Spotlight Germany, Vegetarian Times and the Miami Herald. She is an avid reader, enjoys kayaking, traveling and exploring the Oregon Coast where she lives with her husband Chan and rescue pups, Gus and Lily.
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