Escambia Bay Bridge

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The Escambia Bay Bridge is a four-lane freeway bridge that crosses the Escambia Bay near Pensacola, Florida. The bridge is part of Interstate 10 and was damaged during Hurricane Ivan in 2004.

Hurricane Damage

The I-10 Escambia Bay Bridge, which connects Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties, experienced damage when the storm surge associated with Hurricane Ivan (9/16/04) knocked 58 spans off of the eastbound and westbound bridges and misaligned another 66 spans causing the bridge to close to traffic in both directions. This essential bridge connects the northern part of Florida with the Gulf Coast and is used by an estimated 25,000 vehicles a day.

Emergency crews performed emergency debris removal and disposal inspection, roadway and bridge construction inspection, construction mobilization, inspection of Acrow bridge construction and installation, pile driving inspection, beam slab relocation (eastbound to westbound), inspection of beam slab relocation and realignment, inspection of jacking operation, inspection of substructure bent cap repair, fabrication and replacement, major repair of the substructure to restore structural integrity, and preparation of a maintenance-of-traffic plan inspection, days after the devastating storm.

On October 5, 2004, 18 days after work began, and almost a week ahead of schedule, the I-10 Bridge reopened to two-way traffic with all traffic flowing on the westbound bridge. The eastbound bridge over Escambia Bay opened on Saturday November 20. The opening came 27 days ahead of the planned schedule. Due to incident management concerns and the amount of Acrow (metal) decking used for repairs, the westbound bridge remained open to only two-lane traffic; however, the eastbound bridge was initially restricted to one lane. Trucks were restricted to the right lane of the westbound bridge. The speed limit remained at 40 miles-per-hour on both structures and restrictions remained in place for overweight and oversized trucks. A special detour route was set up for permitted loads using an ITS system to keep the public informed of detours. .

Constant inspection of all Acrow and bridge components and maintenance-of-traffic through the construction zone for both the eastbound and westbound I-10 Escambia Bay Bridges will continue until the new bridge is in place and the old one is torn down.

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