TAMPA, Fla. — The upper-level lanes of the Selmon extension over Gandy Boulevard were still closed Monday as engineers tried to figure out what caused some of the wires inside the bridge to come loose.
“We’re still trying to figure out what it is and how to fix it and then the time frame to do that,” said Sue Chrzan, a spokesperson for THEA or the Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority.
During a routine inspection, engineers from THEA noticed a wire within one of the strand cables that run horizontally inside the raised extension had come loose from its anchor.
Traffic has been halted as a precaution while an inspection team surveys the hollow 1.9-mile roadway from the inside.
“There’s no issue with the bridge falling down or anything on Gandy Boulevard. It’s just in an abundance of caution we want to make sure that we know what the issue is and that we’re fixing it correctly,” Chrzan said.
Each of the extension’s 744 segments is held together with several so-called tendons. Each of those tendons is held together by several strands. And each of those strands is held together by several wires.
It’s two of those wires coming loose that raised concern.
"It’s been designed to have this kind of thing happen and repaired under live traffic," Chrzan said. "We’re just making a little bit more of a caution area because it’s a newer bridge."
Another reason engineers are being extremely cautious is because they don’t have a lot of history with bridges built this way. In fact, the Selmon Expressway extension is one of only two in the country that uses this particular type of construction.
The bridge itself is scheduled for maintenance inspections every two years. This one was being done at the one-year mark because it’s still under warranty, and engineers were making sure that there weren’t any issues that needed to be addressed.
In the meantime, all traffic is now using the same route it followed before the extension opened 11 months ago: Gandy Boulevard.
That’s not so great for commuters who are having déjà vu traffic nightmares backing up along the Gandy Bridge.
“I had to leave a little bit earlier because I had a feeling on the way home it’s going to be a little more congested,” commuter Illya Torbica said.
But moving those 17,000 to 20,000 cars back onto Gandy also means more potential customers for local businesses.
“I’m sure, yeah. The more people that see you the better,” said Jacob Lott who operates a Computer Doctors store near Gandy and Westshore Boulevard. “So, I won’t complain.”
How long the closure lasts is up to engineers.
It might be something they can fix with traffic moving overhead. Or it might be something that keeps the overpass closed a while longer.
“We want to make sure we do our due diligence,” Chrzan said. “Get all the engineers on board to make sure everything is good for our customers and good for the neighborhood.”