R.I.P. Scout26
After getting complaints about noise on the Kennedy Bridge, a Kentucky Transportation Cabinet inspector visited the span in May and noticed an “audible rattle” and part of the roadway bouncing with traffic.A week later, other inspectors discovered five missing bolts where drivers pass over a strip resembling interlocking fingers near the Indiana state line. It’s one of four joints that connect the bridge deck’s concrete slabs, letting the structure expand and contract.Two weeks later, on June 7, a special review found one more bolt missing in the same area and two other bolts that could be removed by hand. Another two bolts were sheared off.
But the reports also show there were “errors in construction” at the expansion joint that the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet knew about shortly after the span was refurbished. In fact, just two months after Kentucky finished a $22 million overhaul of the Kennedy Bridge deck in 2016, an inspector discovered the joint was misaligned and moving when trucks passed over it. The source of a “banging sound” at the joint wasn’t located.
Meanwhile, the cabinet’s response said the misaligned finger joint “wasn’t alarming” and didn’t necessarily indicate any problems with the bolts in the assembly. The issue could have been caused by temperature changes or how the frame underneath was placed, it said.
