TOLEDO, OH (Toledo News Now) - ?
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Bridge in downtown Toledo is stuck in the upright position for the sixth straight day.
The bridge was raised around 10:30 a.m. Friday and has not returned to its normal, drivable position since. City officials are hoping to reopen the bridge sometime Tuesday now that they have received the part they needed to fix the problem.
"Our backup system has failed, we're unable to move the bridge, and so the Coast Guard requires us to keep it in the open position until we can resume normal operations," said Senior Engineer Kristin Cousino.
An electronic board that operates the Martin Luther King Bridge failed Monday and the Streets, Bridges, and Harbor Department was left waiting for the replacement part to arrive from Wisconsin. Now that it is here they say the installation process will take about four hours, but Cousino says the city also has to work with the Coast Guard to determine when they can begin that work.
"The Coast Guard is working with us, we're talking to them all the time, we're trying to get schedules from all the different shipping agencies to know what's coming and what's going out when, so that they can grant us a window of opportunity," said Cousino.
And while it might be a headache for drivers, the Toledo Fire Department says they're not seeing too much of an impact from it so far.
"Both bridges, the Craig and the MLK go up on a regular basis, so this is really nothing new to us, the upside is we know this is up, so we can prepare in advance for that, more than we normally do," said Toledo Fire Lt. Matthew Hertzfeld.
He says their crews are always aware of the possibility of the bridge being up, especially during shipping season, and having multiple stations also helps them.
"Fortunately our stations are placed strategically around the city, so in some cases there may be no delay in response, and in other cases, there may be some delay in response, but it's really hard to tell, without knowing where they're going, and where that incident may be at," said Lt. Hertzfeld.
He says the fire department wants the community to be aware that they can still respond to emergencies.
"This really does not impact our operations too much more than it would normally during the shipping season when the bridge is up, or for any other incident that may happen," said Lt. Hertzfeld.
While the fire department may not be seeing a large affect, businesses near the bridge are seeing a slow down because of the closure. Sue Wistinghausen from Michael's Cafe and Bakery says their delivery vans are up and running, so if customers can't get over the bridge to come to them, they will come to the customers.
"Just adding a little extra delivery time, just to be safe, we want those deliveries all on time and ready to go," said Wistinghausen.
Manager at Forrester's on the River Jonathan McQueary says they lost a lot of business over the weekend and today their lunch crowd was much slower than usual.
"A ton of reservations this weekend canceled, because they couldn't find a way to get across the bridge. A lot of people aren't familiar, of course, the Craig Street Bridge, you can go that way, but it's way out of the way. The High Level Bridge is down, this bridge is down, it has tremendously impacted our business," said McQueary.
He also says it's not only effected their business, but also their staff, who live on the other side of the bridge and are having trouble getting to work.
