Louisiana will seek private funding to replace the nearly 70-year-old, functionally obsolete I-10 Calcasieu River Bridge in Lake Charles.
Opened in 1952, the 6,605-ft-long through truss bridge carries 80,000 vehicles per day, double the volume recorded just 20 years earlier. In that time, National Bridge Inventory condition assessments for the bridge superstructure, substructure and deck have fallen to structurally deficient levels, with a sufficiency rating of 9.9 out of 100. During Hurricane Laura last August, an unmoored riverboat casino struck bridge piers, but caused no major damage.