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Damn. The posted limit on the bridge is 3 tons. The truck empty weighs 4.5 tons and they were hauling a full load of gravel. What an idiot. They better yank the driver's commercial license because he obviously wasn't reading any signs.
I used to live near a few covered bridges, and trucks would always be doing shit like this. They'd either be overweight and cause damage to the bridge (though never this bad) or they'd be too tall and drive off with part of the bridge attached.
The term Historic is being used to grab attention, but this is fixable, even it will take until Spring. The article states that it was rebuilt in the 70's, but the wooden deck has almost certainly been replaced a few times since then.
Historic is also there to point to why the bridge isn’t at fault. Modern bridges can often handle such weights, but historic bridges can’t. Certain parts of the country have reason (aesthetics, historical value, and tourism) to rebuild and restore their historic bridges rather than replace them with modern bridges.
All bridges are built to their spec. They put Historic in the headline because it would grab attention, but the bridge isn't as old as it seems. It's wooden, so the boards already have to be replaced on a scheduled basis. It was rebuilt from scratch in the 70's after an arson fire, but you can tell from the images that the deck boards the truck fell through is a lot newer. I should look up the bridge on Google maps, but I'm willing to bet that a modern bridge isn't very far away and that's why they can wait till spring to repair it with locally sourced wood. If it was a high necessity path, they could go to a hardware store and fix it in a week or two.
No one managed to get a shot of the truck in the water apparently