The Tex Wash bridge, built on the eastbound I-10 in 1967, was listed as functionally obsolete in the 2014 National Bridge Inventory. Essentially, the bridge is no longer adequate for its task; however, it was not listed as having known structural problems that need to be fixed.
"Interstate 10 is closed completely and indefinitely," said Terri Kasinga, spokeswoman for the California Department of Transportation.
The closure will force motorists seeking to use I-10 to travel between California and Arizona to go hundreds of miles out of their way to Interstate 8 to the south or Interstate 40 to the north.
Busy I-10 is the most direct route between the Los Angeles area and Phoenix. An average of more than 20,000 cars per day pass through the area that is shut down, according to federal highway statistics.
The bridge for eastbound traffic about 15 feet above the wash about 50 miles west of the Arizona state line gave way and ended up in the flooding water below, the California Highway Patrol said, blocking all traffic headed toward Arizona. One driver of a pickup truck that fell with the freeway had moderate injuries, officials said.
The westbound section of the freeway near the tiny town of Desert Center was also closed. The roadway was intact but extremely undermined by flooding and could need just-as-extensive rebuilding, Kasinga said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/california-freeway-bridge-collapses-during-heavy-rains_55ac919de4b0d2ded39f4bc7
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/07/19/i-10-collapse-california/30399815/
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