BRIDGE DAMAGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 142, 13 December 1939, Page 12

BRIDGE DAMAGE

UPPER HUTT VALLEY

PIER SWEPT AWAY BY FLOOD

TRAFFIC STOPPED

The worst particular damage done by the storm on Monday was the weakening of bridges in the upper length of the Hutt Valley. The first of the Akatarawa bridges has been so badly weakened that it will have to be destroyed and replaced; the Maymorn Estate bridge, built of heavy totara beams, has disappeared, as, a bridge, and the Te Marua bridge, over the Mangaroa, above Upper Hutt, has been weakened,'but may be repairable.

The Akatarawa' bridge was built in 1915 ■in lightly reinforced concrete— lightly, that is, in comparison with present standards of bridge construction —near the fork of the Akatarawa and Hutt Rivers, which were earlier crossed by two "wooden bridges, one over each stream. These bridges were built many years ago and for the last fifteen or more years have been closed to traffic, and one of them has lost most of. its decking. They were probably the most photographed bridges in the North Island (not excepting the Mohaka) for they gained in the picturesque as they aged; now they look like coming back into temporary use for light traffic, for the concrete bridge is dangerous and cannot be replaced within many weeks.

Why the bridge failed cannot be established until expert examination is made when the flood goes down. Heavy scouring took place at the foot of the pier in the middle of the main current; residents' thereabout suggest that repeated pounding by logs and beams brought down from. above were the last straw, and about one o'clock on Monday the pier crashed and disappeared; how far >it has gone is not known, for the river is still high. A photograph on the illustrations page shows where the pier used to be, but cannot, of course, show the signs of failure in the upper structure in cracks developing at a score of points. Yesterday afternoon .Public Works officials made a preliminary examination of the bridge and ruled that it should be closed,to all traffic, foot, or wheel, as the two-45-foot spans, transformed into a 90-foot span, might go at any time. Not long before that a dairy farmer higher in the valley had crossed with a milk lorry and got back, and a second lorry had crossed once; he was right annoyed when he was denied the return trip. The likelihood of collapse now seems less, and explosives may be used to "drop the doubled span. The old bridges are being looked over today and if they are good enough will be redecked and opened for light I motor traffic. BLACK BRIDGE REOPENED. Much the same thing happened at the Te Marua bridge, but the single pier in the middle of the Mangaroa did not fail entirely. Scouring let the footing down by the best part of a foot, and the two short spans are badly strained and the junction crushed. Examinations will be made as soon as the stream flow falls, and unless the footing is more affected than is thought likely the bridge will be jacked up and the pier made good. Just" beyond the concrete bridge, which was built in 1926, the old Black Bridge is standing, and this has been opened for careful traffic, but it has no margin of safety and the Public Works Department is insisting upon day driving only, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. only, and speeds- and loads must be kept low. Near the Te Marua bridge is a light suspension bridge from the main road to a farm over the stream. This was damaged by drift timber and the wreck of the wooden bridge from Maymorn, but came through lightly, and repairs will be quickly carried out. TAITA GORGE CLOSED. The Taita Gorge damage has occurred further north than usual, not far from the junction of the Western Hutt and the Main Roads, between the junction and Silverstream railway overbridge. The river has bitten into the bank and has taken out half the road width over a length of a chain or more. The eating-back continued yesterday afternoon, and is likely to go further, for there is a good deal of overhang of the present edge of the roadway. Protective work will be a fairly big job.

The new faces of the Ngahauranga Gorge Road stood up very well, for there were ho slips of any consequence at all. The coastal highway was not affected, nor was the new Hutt Road, the better provision made for surface drainage on the banked curves taking the water away rapidly.