CalFire works to rescue a patient from his car after a bridge collapsed, closing I-10 in Desert Center.(Photo: CalFire)
A bridge collapse east of the in Southern California late Sunday afternoon forced the closure of Interstate 10 – the main roadway between Southern California and Phoenix – as well as injuring one person and stranding hundreds of motorists backed up for miles.
A truck was headed east on I-10 when the Tex Wash bridge crumpled around 4:45 p.m. PT. Bystanders used straps from their cars to tie the truck to a guardrail and prevent it from washing away in the running water.
A passenger in the truck was able to get out, but the driver had to be rescued. Firefighters went into rapidly rising water with asphalt and debris falling around them to pull the driver out by 7 p.m.
The motorist had moderate injuries.
As it collapsed, the Tex Wash bridge struck the bridge adjacent to it on the westbound side. Both lanes of I-10 will be closed until a California Department of Transportation engineer deems at least the westbound lane safe, a decision that could take days. The interstate is the major freeway through Southern California, connecting it to Arizona.
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 was listed as no longer adequate for its task, though it was not listed as having known structural problems that needed to be fixed.
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