Bridge repairs along Old Cheney Road near South 1st Street got a lot more complicated over the weekend, says the Lancaster County Engineering Department.
The Sheriff’s Department reported Monday that three teenagers ignored road closed signs and drove their cars onto the bridge under construction for potholes around 9:30 p.m. Chief Deputy Ben Houchin said the kids were going downtown for a cup of coffee.
One of the teens, a 15-year-old girl driving an Audi S4 on a school learners permit, got stuck in the uncured cement and had to exit the vehicle. The car remains stuck there as of Wednesday, May 14.
Damage to the bridge is estimated at $100,000 to $200,000. There were no injuries in the crash and and all three teens received traffic citations.
County Engineer Pam Dingman tells KLIN News that bridge, bridge #037, is undergoing a concrete wet cure and can’t be removed until that process is complete and the surface is evaluated.
“What I really wanted to do was and make sure that any part of that deck that we could save, we saved,” Dingman said. “If we would have turned off the sprinklers and unwrapped the bridge Friday night, we would have for sure lost the whole deck.”
She says crews are planning to unwrap the wet cure this Friday, May 16, and remove the vehicle. “…and until we do that, we really can’t make any solid determination on what needs to be done.”
Dingman said this is a novel situation. A group of her County Engineer colleagues from around the state and country had never encountered a similar incident.
“If we do have to mill off the top couple inches and start over, it could be another 2-4 weeks,” said Dingman, adding the bridge was originally set to reopen this Friday. She says this is a frequently used road, so her team is concerned about overburdening nearby detour routes.
Dingman’s final message: “If you see those road close signs, please do not go around them. Please take another route to get to where you need to go.”