Transportation Builders Race to Save Wounded Jax Bridge
On the afternoon of Sept. 26, 2013, a naval cargo ship struck the Mathews Bridge, one of Jacksonville's principal arterial expressways, severing the bridge's north bottom truss chord. Within an hour, the Florida Dept. of Transportation (FDOT) had officially declared the situation an emergency, enabling the agency to launch emergency repair efforts.
More than 56,000 Jacksonville-area commuters who use the bridge daily were counting on FDOT and its emergency response team to quickly determine a repair strategy for which there was no known precedent. The plan was to pull the ends of the severed chord back into position to relieve stresses across the structure and hold them in place while permanent repairs to the damaged members were made.