It’s been a rough spring in Michigan. Heavy rain fell on already saturated ground. Roads flooded. Waterways overflowed. And it’s taken its toll on the state’s bridges.
Since the flooding began, at least 22 Michigan bridges have closed. Two of them collapsed.
Reports of the unplanned bridge closures stretched across 13 counties, including Alcona, Arenac, Grand Traverse, Iron, Manistee, Menominee, Midland, Muskegon, Newaygo, Oakland, Osceola, Van Buren and Wexford, according to the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT).
The flooding exposes a wider problem: aging, underfunded infrastructure vulnerable to increasingly intense storms.
The bridge count includes unplanned closures of structures that are 20 feet or longer on public roads. The closures range from a 66-year-old bridge in Iron County in the Upper Peninsula, previously rated in fair condition, to a bridge listed in poor condition in Van Buren County on the west side of the state, to multiple closures in Menominee and Grand Traverse County.
At least half of the bridges that closed unexpectedly have since reopened, an MDOT official wrote in an email on Monday afternoon, April 20.
The statewide flooding and infrastructure damage are unlike anything we’ve seen before, said Mike Shriberg, professor and director of the University of Michigan Water Center.
What used to be the rare exception is now the new normal.
“Climate change supercharges the atmosphere,” he explained. A warmer atmosphere holds more water — think larger buckets dumping from the sky. That means bigger storms and droughts.
After a week of flooding, two Michigan bridges didn’t hold.
Both structures were county-owned and had already been closed before they collapsed, according to MDOT. The Beitner Road bridge over the Boardman River, south of Traverse City in Grand Traverse County, was rated in poor condition, according to the latest state inspection data. The Johnson Road bridge over Big Bear Creek in Manistee County was rated in fair condition before it failed.
In Grand Traverse County, two additional bridges carrying traffic on South Airport Road over the Boardman River were closed due to rising flood waters but reopened over the weekend.
More than 1,200 Michigan bridges are in poor or worse condition, according to state data. That’s roughly 11% of the state’s 11,300-plus structures — the same share reported in a 2019 Free Press investigation.
The numbers don’t surprise Shriberg.
“Right now we are kind of running to stay in place at best,” he said, “and the landscape is changing under us … because of the impacts of climate change.”
There is no substitute for investing smartly and more in roads, dams and bridges, he said. “Every day you don’t invest, you’re moving backwards.”
Kristi Tanner is a data reporter. Contact her at ktanner@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Flooding closes 22 bridges in 13 counties; half have reopened, state says
Reporting by Kristi Tanner, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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