CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — UPDATE:
The damage to the Yorktown Mud Bridge is being examined to figure out why the sinkhole occurred in the first place. City officials have put a request in to the Texas Department of Transportation asking them to help, "speed up the process" but will not move forward with construction until after they have completed their investigation.
For the next 30 days, crews will be out in Flour Bluff, working on the Yorktown Mud Bridge, possibly longer with the bridge closed the public works department can tackle all the major issues they found.
It’s going to be a $400,00-to-500,000 project.
The money will come from stormwater fees paid by Corpus Christi residents.
“We will be fixing the embankments in a very secure way and then we’ll fix the sinkhole,” city manager Peter Zanoni said.
Zanoni said what was first a matter of repairing a two-foot sinkhole on the 8600 block of Yorktown Blvd, turned into a much bigger repair job as they discovered other major problems.
“Some of the beams that hold up the bridge, have some significant concrete erosion,” Zanoni explained.
The City's Director of Public Works, Ernesto De la Garza, gave this explanation of why these major problems are just now coming to light.
“There’s been no proactive measures that systematically say, it’s built, let’s maintain it, until it gets rebuilt,” De la Garza said.
The Mud Bridge won't just be patched up.
City officials tell KRIS 6 News the goal is to make this bridge more resistant to erosion damage caused by high tides and strong currents in the area. All that is good news for Flour Bluff resident, Ron Stringer. He said this work is long overdue, but he will have to find a new route to take when he goes to church.
“So, I was hoping the bridge would be available this Friday. It doesn’t look like that will happen,” Stringer said. “I’ll have to go around from here to SPID, to Rodd field, and back.”
If you want to keep up with the Mud Bridge repair project, click here.
