Reconstruction starts on covered bridge

STONELICK TOWNSHIP – Reconstruction of Clermont County’s only covered bridge has begun six months after the historic 136-year-old structure collapsed.

With perfect weather, the Stonelick-Williams Corner Covered Bridge is expected to reopen Dec. 31, said Jon Carpenter, who handles right of way acquisition for the Clermont County engineer’s office.

That won’t be any too soon for the commuters who use Stonelick-Williams Corner Road near U.S. 50 in Stonelick Township.

“We probably get a couple of calls a week asking when the bridge is going to reopen,” said bridge engineer Todd Gadbury with the Clermont County engineer’s office. “A lot of people are frustrated with gas prices and the detour and what it’s costing them.”

The bridge also is popular with pedestrians and bicyclists, said Carpenter, who’s at the job site daily inspecting the general contractor’s work.

Built in 1878, the Stonelick-Williams Corner Covered Bridge collapsed on Feb. 11 while crews were rehabilitating the historic structure. The bridge had been closed to traffic since May 2010 when an overloaded garbage truck ignored the 3-ton weight limit and broke the floor beams.

When the bridge’s roof and trusses fell into Stonelick Creek in February, Carpenter was among the workers who escaped without injury.

“There wasn’t much warning,” Carpenter said. “There was a little bit of vibration, and I heard some metal clanking.”

The reconstructed bridge will have six trusses on each side to help support the structure, instead of the four on each side that were there previously. By mid-September, crews hope to have the floor on the bridge.

Each of the wooden trusses “was individually evaluated by a third party structural expert with significant wooden covered bridge experience,” according to a letter that County Engineer Pat Manger posted on his office’s website. That inspection concluded that most of the bridge’s original truss components could be reused.

“Our goal remains to complete the project using as many original elements as possible while ensuring the safety of travelers across the bridge, and our priority continues to be a complete restoration in a manner that will highlight the long and historic past of the Stonelick-Williams Corner Covered Bridge,” Manger wrote in a letter just days after the bridge collapsed.

The new bridge will have an eight-ton weight limit, more than double the previous three tons.

Gadbury said crews had hoped to start rebuilding the bridge in June, but had to wait until a custom order of timber was shipped from the West Coast.

More than half of the materials from the original bridge were salvaged, Gadbury said. The siding and the roof had been replaced in the 1970s or 1980s, he said.

The project’s general contractor, the Righter Co. Inc. in Columbus, Ohio, has extensive experience in covered and historic bridge renovation, according to its website.

“This company’s rehabbed over 100 covered bridges,” Carpenter said.

The general contractor is working 50 hours a week to finish the bridge by Dec. 31, Carpenter said. For more information, including a map of a possible detour, visit clermontengineer.org.

Want to know more about what’s happening in Clermont County? Follow me on Twitter @CindyLSchroeder.