Nearly 25 years before the Fern Hollow Bridge’s spectacular collapse in January, inspectors found something under the span that prompted them to make a simple, but crucial, recommendation.
“Paint areas where previous and active leakage occurs, primarily the frame legs,” inspectors told Pittsburgh officials in 1997.
In the 1980s, the Federal Highway Administration urged that “uncoated weathering steel” — the kind used in Fern Hollow specifically because it did not have to be painted — needed to be painted near the girders and in overlapping joint areas to prevent the metal from deteriorating and creating a risk of “structural failure.”
But the fix never happened.
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First Published: June 18, 2022, 3:09 p.m.
Updated: June 20, 2022, 10:14 a.m.
