Oakley C. Collins bridge will be closed for two days for inspection
Published 12:00 am Saturday, August 28, 2021
In two weeks, the Oakley Collins Memorial Bridge which connects Ironton to Kentucky will be closed for part of two days for its annual inspection.
The Ohio Department of Transportation said the bridge will be closed starting Monday, Sept. 13. It will be closed from 8:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m. during the inspection and traffic will be rerouted to the bridges in Ashland, Kentucky.
ODOT said they expect to be done by 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 14.
The inspection is a routine one, done every year by bridge specialists from the Office of Structural Engineering.
The reason for the bridge being closed to all traffic is because the size of the “snooper” used during the inspection. A snooper is Aspen bucket truck that the inspectors use to look the whole bridge over.
The snooper allows the inspectors to go up high to look over the towers and cables that hold the bridge up. It also allows the crew of two to get up to 60 feet under the bridge.
The crew will be physically inspecting the towers and different areas they can reach.