The National Transportation Safety Board is urging Louisiana to assess the safety of eight of its bridges, including almost all of those crossing the Mississippi River in the state, in a new report following last year's collapse in Baltimore.
The Crescent City Connection in New Orleans, the Sunshine Bridge in Donaldsonville and the Mississippi River Bridge in Baton Rouge were among those flagged in the report released Thursday.
Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge, whose collapse after being struck by a container ship in March 2024 killed six people, was riskier than acceptable under the guidelines of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation, the report found.
The NTSB, responsible for investigating infrastructure incidents, listed 68 waterway bridges across the country that have not gone through an assessment based on recent ship traffic and "therefore have an unknown level of risk of collapse from a potential vessel collision."
These are the eight Louisiana bridges identified in the report:
- Greater New Orleans Bridge (New Orleans)
- Crescent City Connection Bridge (New Orleans)
- Huey P. Long Bridge (Jefferson Parish)
- Hale Boggs Bridge (Luling)
- Sunshine Bridge (Donaldsonville)
- Veterans Memorial Bridge (Gramercy)
- Mississippi River Bridge/I-10 Bridge (Baton Rouge, officially named Horace Wilkinson Bridge)
- Israel LaFleur Bridge (Lake Charles)
The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development says it has conducted a vulnerability assessment on all of the bridges flagged in the memo, a representative for the agency said, and plans to respond within 30 days.
"DOTD stands by the statement that if a bridge is open, it is safe to drive over," said Daniel Gitlin, a public information officer for the department.
The Louisiana agency noted that the national report does not suggest that the 68 bridges are "certain to collapse," but rather that bridge owners, like DOTD, should evaluate how vulnerable they are to collapse.
A caravan of antique cars representing five antique car clubs of the New Orleans area make their way across the Huey P. Long Bridge in observance of the bridge's 50th anniversary in 1985.
But the report also stresses that the owners of the 68 waterway bridges "are likely unaware of their bridges' risk of catastrophic collapse from a vessel collision." Had the Maryland Transportation Authority assessed the Key Bridge using the standards outlined in the report, the state agency would have known of the risks and could have strategized to prevent the deadly collapse, it says.
After conducting vulnerability assessments, the transportation safety board wants state agencies to develop risk reduction plans that include short and long-term strategies and consider vessel safety in waterways, the report says.
Old bridges
All of the potentially risky bridges noted in the report were constructed before the national highway and transportation association — representing state departments across the country — released its guidance in 1991. The Louisiana bridges in the report were built between 1936 and 1989.
"DOTD currently has mitigation measures in place to reduce the risk of incidents, as does the Coast Guard and the ports," a department spokesperson said.
Some of these measures include vessel tracking systems, advanced warning protocol and helping large tankers while docking.
Southbound traffic on River Road backs up as drivers wait to cross the Mississippi River via the LA-70 Sunshine Bridge, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in St. James Parish.
Among the 19 states named in the report, Louisiana trailed behind only New York for the number of potentially risky bridges. Texas and California each had seven bridges in need of assessment.
At least one of the bridges named in the report has been in the spotlight due to its potential vulnerability.
The Sunshine Bridge in Donaldsonville has already been the subject of a federal investigation after a crane barge crash in 2018. A DOTD engineer, citing computer modeling, said the crash should have caused the bridge to collapse, and state officials said that the Sunshine Bridge is seen by the agency as one of its "fracture critical" bridges.
