Bridge Scour Analysis Statewide Louisiana

News headlines in New York on April 6, 1987 carried the tragic news: ten people had lost their lives the day before in one of the most catastrophic occurrences of bridge failures in the United States. What caused the collapse of the Interstate 90 Bridge crossing of Schoharie Creek near Amsterdam, New York did not come as a total surprise to bridge engineers. It was the same condition that led to more than half the bridge failures in the United States annually: scour.  The FHWA issued Technical Advisory T5140.23, which required all State Departments of Transportation (DOTs) to evaluate existing bridges for potential failure due to scour or stream instability. The FHWA advisory further required all DOTs to develop Plans of Action for implementing countermeasures for those vulnerable bridges. The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (LADOTD) divided the state into multi-regional areas for multiple consultants to perform the initial scour assessment.

M&M assembled a multi-disciplinary team with the capability and capacity to perform scour analyses on 648 bridges throughout the state that were determined to be scour critical. The LADOTD’s scope of work also included determining a Plan of Action for the scour critical bridges, as well as a design of countermeasures and associated construction plans, if necessary. The significance of the assignment cannot be understated. For the LADOTD, compliance with FHWA directives is a must. For M&M, this is an extremely important multi-year assignment. It’s one for which our client has total faith in our team’s ability to use our engineering expertise to assure the safety of the traveling public in their jurisdiction.