“The places in the water, those places held. “I cannot tell you when the temporary bridge for Sanibel will be done,” DeSantis said. “There’s this beautiful 7-Eleven and it’s closed because I don’t think they have adequate power.”īut the governor was far shorter on specifics for when Sanibel Island residents will have access to the mainland, despite FDOT saying their goal is to finish a temporary causeway by the end of the month. “As soon as the bridge is open, Publix will open,” DeSantis said. Areas on the northern part of the island in particular sustained less storm surge damage than areas further south. Now that Pine Island is reconnected to the mainland, DeSantis said gas stations and the Publix supermarket on the island will be able to reopen. Other bridges further inland remain closed due to flooding, though I-75 is open. In addition to Pine Island and Sanibel, Lee County officials said four other bridges also remained closed as of Tuesday, though other roads are open to allow traffic and emergency responders to move through the Fort Myers area. They said that a temporary solution for the Sanibel Island Causeway would be incorporated into long-term, permanent repairs after the temporary causeway is open to traffic. I’m confident we can provide the same level of service for the Sanibel Island community,” Perdue said in a statement.įDOT said that “all accessible state-owned bridge inspections have been completed” while inspections continue on locally owned bridges. “The Pine Island bridge is well on its way for completion. Perdue said a bridge stability analysis will take place before repairing bridge approaches and the roadway. “That would be very hard to build - with something like Pine Island you could use an but I don’t think that would be a solution at Sanibel,” Williamson said.įDOT secretary Jared Perdue said the main issue with the Sanibel Causeway involves land that was washed out along the roadway, a similar problem facing Pine Island but on a bigger scale. The options, he said, would be a temporary structure over a damaged piece of roadway, a bridge held in place by boats or a temporary aluminum bridge. Williamson said most of the temporary bridge building solutions he worked on in the Army Corps would not necessarily provide an immediate fix for the Sanibel Causeway.
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Williamson said he was able to read the state’s request for bids for the Sanibel Causeway and that “most of it was bureaucratic procurement-speak.” The request did not include specifics on how to rebuild the bridge but was more about bringing in qualified people, he said.
“As soon as you get awarded, you get people on the ground,” said Williamson.įDOT did not immediately provide a copy of the bid proposal, which Williamson was able to view publicly on Monday before a publicly viewable link to the proposal stopped working. Steve Williamson, a former Army Corps of Engineers director of engineering, who currently works as the city manager for Key Biscayne, a barrier island near Miami connected to the mainland via a causeway and bridge system, said the state’s top priority at the moment for the Sanibel Causeway would be getting the best possible engineers on the ground as quickly as possible. The two bridges had federal sufficiency ratings before the storm of less than 80 on a 100 point scale, which makes them eligible for federal bridge rehabilitation funds, but greater than 50, the mark below which a bridge is eligible for a replacement with federal funds. “I can’t tell … exactly how long that’s going to take,” DeSantis said, adding that he prefers a temporary bridge to a ferry system for island residents. The contract for a temporary bridge repair was awarded on Tuesday evening, and FDOT said it anticipates a temporary bridge “to be accessible by the end of October.” Instead, FDOT solicited bids for a temporary bridge replacement for Sanibel, which DeSantis described as a fast-tracked but “competitive” process.
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On the Sanibel Causeway, which DeSantis said will “require more TLC” than the Pine Island project, most of the damage was near the causeway islands and not to the major spans high above the water.īut dump trucks full of dirt won’t be able to reconnect the three-mile bridge and island system in a matter of days. DeSantis said that FDOT is taking the lead on bridge rebuilding efforts, including the dirt-road temporary solution for Pine Island that began Monday.
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