Seven bridges have been closed down throughout Madison County, but the board of supervisors and other county officials are doing what they can to fix them.
“Last week, State Aid was still doing their inspections around the county,” County Engineer Dan Gaillet said. “As a result, last Thursday and Friday, we had to close down another seven bridges. We’ve officially shut down four of the seven (temporarily)…” District 5 has six of the seven closed bridges. The other one is the Gluckstadt Road bridge, located on the east side of the interstate near its transition to Old Jackson Road.
“Paul (Griffin’s) district is unfortunately being hit the hardest. Out of the seven, I think he has six of them.”
Griffin stated his dissatisfaction with the ordeal: “The Federal Highway (Administration) closed all of those bridges. Madison County didn’t close them; the Federal Highway did, and then they’re giving us no money to fix those bridges.”
Gaillet said he and other officials are currently working with the county’s State Aid division to see what funding is available.
“Unfortunately, when we go through the State Aid process, it takes a year, year and a half to kind of get through that process, and it really depends on what funding they’ve got and how fast the process will go… So, we’ve got to make some determinations…”
To fill in the gap from State Aid, Gaillet requested $10,000 from the Madison County Board of Supervisors for the Gluckstadt Road bridge.
“(We need) $10,000 on Gluckstadt bridge, where we’re just going to go in and wrap the pilings… We don’t feel like we need to do a big, full bridge replacement.”
Gaillet also requested approximately $145,000 for King Ranch bridge in Canton.
The board unanimously approved Gaillet’s request.
