I-Team

MIAMI (CBS4) ― The CBS4 I-Team has discovered more than 50 troubled bridges, bridges in need of repair, that carry a half million cars and trucks over them every day.

Nearly two years ago, an I-Team investigation uncovered dozens of problems with some South Florida bridges. While some of those issues have been fixed, others have not. And more bridges have been added to the list of those troubled and in need of fixing.

Now with the massive federal stimulus bill, the I-Team's investigator Stephen Stock dug into whether the extra federal money will help fix bridges. Fix and repair issues that could eventually jeopardize your safety if they're not fixed soon.

To passers-by, it may appear strange, but the two engineers seen recently in a strange, cherry-picker looking contraption under the bridge at Miami-Dade's Haulover Park in Miami Beach are critical to your safety.

They were Florida Department of Transportation bridge inspectors. And at least every two years, an inspector such as the engineers in the strange contraption goes over every one of Florida's 15,531 bridges with a fine tooth comb.

"They're looking for cracks in welds," said Frank Guyamier, the Director of bridge inspectors for Florida's Department of Transportation in District 6 (Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties.) "They're looking for deteriorating rust and stuff like that."

In engineering terms, the inspectors are looking for deterioration in bridges which leads to the "structural deficiency."

"It ultimately it comes down to the capacity of the bridge and whether or not it can handle the legal weights going over it," Guyamier said.

Engineers inspect the bridge's supports, roadbed, superstructure, guardrails and even underwater supports. The engineers then grade each bridge with a sufficiency rating by combining the conditions of the various elements of the bridge.

Any bridge rated as "structurally deficient" and given a sufficiency rating of 50 or below by engineers, by rule, is supposed to be repaired or replaced right away.

"Once you get below 50, that's when you need to put in those necessary repairs," said the Assistant Secretary for Engineering and Operations at Florida's Department of Transportation in Tallahassee.

The reason for all this scrutiny: to avoid a similar experience as the collapse of the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis on August 1, 2007.

It was a bridge that had been rated "structurally deficient" by engineer inspectors in Minnesota before it fell.

The CBS4 I-Team dug through 717,946 different inspection records as part of the National Bridge Inventory. The I-Team discovered 292 bridges in Florida, 52 in South Florida alone, that structural engineers in Florida rated the same or worse structurally as that bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis.

Among those on the list: bridges carrying Sunrise Boulevard over the Middle River in Fort Lauderdale, I-395 and the Venetian Causeway in Miami, and Duck Key Drive and Pigeon Key Bridge, next to the 7 mile bridge, in the Florida Keys. The Pigeon Key Bridge has been rated so low that vehicle traffic has been permanently banned from it. Other bridges on the list have been closed. Still others are undergoing repair.

I-Team Related Links
Slideshow: The 26 bridges in the worst shape in South Florida.
Click here to see the entire list of bridges in poor shape in South Florida

The bridges date back to 1912, 1925 and 1927, the original construction dates on four bridges.

44 of the bridges in South Florida on the structural deficient list were built before 1970.

Together the 52 bridges on the structural deficient list in South Florida carry an average of 467,723 cars and trucks across them every day, with the top bridge carrying an average of 70,000 vehicles on it a day. For all 52 bridges, that is an average of 8665 vehicles on each bridge every day.

The bridges on the list include bridges that are 3194.3 feet and 2052.5 feet long. There are also bridges that are only 6.8 feet and 9.1 feet long.

The bridges span vast expanses of water, the Intracoastal waterway, canals and other streets and highways.

I-Team investigator Stephen Stock posed this question to DOT's chief bridge inspector in South Florida, Frank Guyamier: "When the public sees that there are 52 bridges in these categories should they be worried?"

"I don't think they should be worried," Guyamier replied. "I think they should make sure that whatever agencies, the owner, (be it county or city) address the deficiencies to get them back into a condition that is acceptable."

The President's Stimulus Package's Effects
"(The stimulus bill will mean) jobs rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges," President Barack Obama said announcing the nation's economic recovery plan, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, soon after taking office in January.

President Obama's stimulus bill included millions of tax dollars to go to bridge repair including $1.3 Billion dollars designated to the state of Florida for highways and bridges alone.

The state already sets money aside for bridge repair. But, Florida DOT's Kevin Thibault and Frank Guyamier both said that this federal stimulus money will help local municipalities and counties fix the bridges that, until now couldn't be repaired due to a lack of money.

"Will this stimulus money help address some of these problems?" Stephen Stock asked.

"As far as we're concerned we've (at Florida DOT) already been funded," Frank Guyamier replied. "Now the local agencies are going to benefit from it because it's federal funding that comes in."

"Why hasn't more attention gone to bridges like this that need to be fixed and fixed soon?" I-Team investigator Stock asked State Representative "JC" Juan Carlos Planas.

"I think it is extremely sad that it hasn't," Representative Planas replied. Planas, a Miami Republican, serves on the Florida House of Represenatives' Roads, Bridges and Ports Committee in Tallahassee.

"All of us are concerned after what happened in Minnesota with their bridge a couple of years ago," Representative Planas said. "We need to make sure that that doesn't happen here."

In fact, Florida Department of Transportation officials said that with this federal stimulus money some of those bridges in the Florida Keys that have gone for years with little to no repair may now be fixed.

State officials also promise to hold other municipalities and counties accountable and will press them to use these federal funds to fix bridges that need critical repairs.

The CBS4 I-Team will be watching too, to see if this federal money changes anything as far as reducing the numbers of bridges in dire need of repair.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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