LEXINGTON, S.C. — Gibson Road in Lexington has reopened after crews fixed a bridge located near Gibson Pond Park.
The road closed last week after officials found a hole under the bridge that needed to be repaired. Since then, the 200 block of Gibson Road has been closed while crews worked to fix it.
The South Carolina Department of Transportation first learned of the issue after someone called to notify them.
"Once we saw that, that's an immediate danger," said Alan Kozusko, the district maintenance engineer for SCDOT. "We closed Gibson Road that same hour that we saw it."
SCDOT said they needed to cut out the bad pieces of concrete.
"This is basically happening with traffic vibrations and use of the bridge itself," explained Kozusko. "It's just something that happens with bridges... If concrete cracks, even a little bit, water infiltration gets in and starts to corrode the rebar."
According to the Lexington Police Department, the issue was due to a "massive sink hole," however, the SCDOT says that was not the case. The problem was due to wear and tear from traffic vibrations on the bridge and causing cracks in the concrete.
The engineer says they have a federally mandated and regulated bridge inspection program that's strict but they are grateful people decided to call and let them know there was something wrong on the bridge.
"We definitely appreciate the public's understanding in calling in the repair and being our eyes and ears when we can't have them everywhere all at once. We definitely appreciate giving our workers the room and the time to do their jobs and do what they gotta do" said Kozusko.
Originally the department anticipated they would finish up with the repair after two or three days. After crews got out to Gibson Road, there was more damage around the hole people could see so SCDOT decided to expand the area of repair.
On Monday, the Town of Lexington posted on Facebook saying SCDOT completed fixing the bridge and the road is now back open.
If there's a road in Lexington you think needs to be looked at, you can call 803-737-6660.
For more information on projects SCDOT is currently working on, click here.
