Seal Island Bridge gets repair to failed truss component

The Seal Island Bridge in Cape Breton has been reduced to one lane of traffic this week after a motorist spotted a loose component in an overhead truss and alerted the Department of Transportation.

The department's regional director, Gerard Jessome, said the component, running diagonally about 4½ metres above the bridge deck, was "displaced," likely by the movement of the bridge over time.

The bridge was opened in 1961.

"It's a fairly old structure," said Jessome. "Fatigue in some components like this can pop up from time to time. When they do, you try to identify these beforehand and do the repairs as necessary."

In this case, a structural engineer was brought in immediately to design a repair technique.

"[He's] very familiar with the Seal Island Bridge," said Jessome. "He had done a lot of work there in the past."

Inspection Thursday

It was too windy Monday for a crew to make the repair, but Jessome said it made good progress Tuesday.

The bridge will be closed to all traffic for an hour between 11 a.m. and noon on Thursday, for a final inspection of the fix.

Despite the broken part, the bridge is safe, Jessome said.

"We inspect our structures on a regular basis, and actually the Seal Island Bridge is in preparation for very detailed bridge inspection to review all the components," he said.

"It's a Level 3 inspection, so it's the most detailed inspection that we do. That was just about to happen as this issue arose."

The Level 3 inspection will go ahead some time in the next few weeks.