AMESBURY — Rotting holes in steel support beams, enormous rust patches, small splits in steel girders and broken bracing are evident all along the underside of the John Greenleaf Whittier Bridge, the heavily traveled Interstate 95 span that crosses the Merrimack River between Amesbury and Newburyport.
A just-released state safety report filed in the wake of last year's disastrous collapse of the similarly designed Interstate 35 bridge in Minneapolis gave the 57-year-old Whittier Bridge "poor" ratings due to deterioration. On a 10-step ranking system, the rating is just two steps above the point where engineers consider closing a bridge due to safety concerns.
Despite its current condition, the overall structure remains safe, and the motorists who travel across it each day have no need to worry, senior Massachusetts Highway Department officials said in a conference call with Daily News staff yesterday.
"The bridge is safe," chief engineer Frank Tramontozzi said. "If it wasn't safe, it would have been closed."
On a rating system of 0 to 9 (zero being failure and 9 as excellent), the Whitter's superstructure got a 4 — or "poor" — primarily due to problems with its stringers, floor beams and lateral bracing. The deck also rated a 4 due to problems with railings, catwalks, parapets and overall condition of the deck itself. The substructure — the massive stone piers the steel bridge sits on — rated 6, or satisfactory.
The 4 rank is described in the report as "Poor: advance section loss, deterioration, spalling (splits) or scour." A rank of 5 is "fair," meaning primary structural parts are sound but have some minor cracking or scour. A 6 is "satisfactory," meaning structural parts show some minor deterioration.
The ratings below the "poor" mark are:
3 — "serious," moderate structural problems are showing, but the bridge can remain open.
2 — "critical," a bridge may be closed due to safety problems.
1 — "imminent failure," a bridge is automatically closed.
At zero, "failure," a bridge is "beyond corrective action."
The heavily redacted version of the report — provided to The Daily News after the newspaper reported on four 30-foot beams that had corroded and broken — describes numerous problems with the bridge and provides several photos of major support beams that have partly rotten through.
But much of the report has been blacked out due to post-9/11 security concerns. MassHighway also provided The Daily News access to three engineers to characterize problems with the bridge.
"The bridge is heavily traveled and carries a major highway," MassHighway spokesman Adam Hurtubise said. "Information about its condition is considered security-sensitive information and is redacted as a measure to keep the bridge secure."
The report remarks on several areas where cracks and splits are apparent in steel beams. The actual locations have been blacked out. Some categories — like problems with stringers, floor beams, painting and welds — are almost entirely blacked out.
Information on gussets — the junction points that failed on the Minnesota bridge and led to its collapse — indicate they are in overall satisfactory condition, though some problems with them have been blacked out.
The Whitter Bridge is classified by MassHighway as "structurally deficient" due to its current rating — meaning it's on the radar screen for the state as a structure that needs repairs.
As a bridge in that category, the Whitter is on a list to receive routine inspections each year. Bridges typically get inspected every two years.
The Whittier Bridge is included in the eight-year, $3 billion bridge repair program unveiled by Gov. Deval Patrick earlier this year. Under the plan, the state would borrow $3 billion over the next eight years to accelerate repairs to between 250 and 300 bridges that are structurally deficient.
MassHighway officials said yesterday they are hopeful that the construction of a new bridge will begin within the first five years of the program and will be completed within the eight years of the accelerated program.
In an interview yesterday, Patrick said the Senate needs to vote to approve his plan — something he says will happen.
"We will get this done before the end of this session," Patrick said. The formal session ends July 31.
Patrick said the commonwealth has been "starving our infrastructure for a long time." As soon as his acceleration program is authorized, it will begin, he said.
The collapse of the Interstate 35 bridge in Minneapolis last summer served as a "reminder to the whole country" about infrastructure care, Patrick said, something that is "an acute problem here in the commonwealth."
The Whittier is one of the largest bridges in the state. With more than 75,000 trips across it a day, it is one of the most heavily traveled in the region. The bridge is 1,346 feet long and 100 feet wide.
It is modeled after the Sagamore and Bourne bridges on Cape Cod.
MassHighway officials said yesterday they will be in Amesbury checking on the Whittier even before the one-year anniversary of the last inspection. The two-man crew could even be here as early as next week, checking underneath the structure, Tramontozzi said.
The inspection will likely take about a week, said Brian Clang, a state inspection engineer.
"It's a big structure. It will take some time," he said.
The inspection team will get close enough to the underside of the bridge for an up-close view and to test it in-depth, including banging on beams and checking them for deterioration, Tramontozzi said.
As part of the inspection, the state has a contractor on call to make immediate, emergency repairs based on what the team finds during the week.
Once the bridge's ratings are set, any precautions may be taken — including weight load adjustments for the bridge if needed.
Despite the bridge's current appearance, Alex Bardow, a state bridge engineer, said it is still safe enough to carry a sufficient weight load.
In 2004, the state performed repairs to the bridge's floor beams, and in 2003, repairs were done on the hangers, which attach to the deck.
Netting delayed
Daily News staff recently observed a long, rusty metal beam that appeared to have fallen from the bridge and places where at least three others were missing. MassHighway officials said yesterday the T-shaped beam — about a half-inch thick, 6 inches wide and 30 feet long — was hanging and had been removed by the state agency. It was left on the shoreline.
As a secondary component meant to give the bridge rigidity, the bracings do not affect the safety of the bridge and are usually removed once construction of the structure is completed.
"It does not contribute to the structural integrity of the bridge," Tramontozzi said.
Amid reports that pieces of the bridge had been found on the ground, state legislators from this area called for netting to be placed under the bridge to catch the falling beams.
State Highway officials said yesterday that plan is on hold until after the inspection so the netting will not get in the way of the inspection team — and to see what the inspection shows.
With the bridge on the acceleration plan, it is likely it might not need the netting as a precaution, state officials said.
As the project gets underway, all options will be examined, including building a temporary structure or performing the construction in sections in order to allow traffic to continue to cross over the bridge.
The state will look at the quickest way to get it done, MassHighway officials said yesterday.
How the bridge ranked
Deck 4
Superstructure 4
Substructure 6
(rankings are 0-9, with 0 "failed, 4 "poor", 6 "satisfactory," and 9 "excellent")
