Steel materials secured for bridges destroyed by May floods

Four bridges damaged beyond repair by the May floods have ordered their materials and are one step closer to being fully replaced. The Jasper County Board of Supervisors on Sept. 24 approved bid proposals from the Nebraska-based Oden Enterprises, Inc. for steel girder superstructures for each bridge.

Jasper County Engineer Michael Frietsch got the bridges added to the county’s five-year plan in June. The affected bridges include Bridge M03 on South 24th Avenue East over Cherry Creek; Bridge H08 on North 35th Avenue West, Bridge A08 on North 99th Avenue East and Bridge L01 on South 12th Avenue East.

Floodwaters had outright destroyed or compromised their structural integrity. Frietsch said Bridge M03 is currently in Cherry Creek and the road leading to it is closed. Photos of its destruction were shared by the county on social media. The replacement of Bridge M03 will be a 120-foot structure.

“We bid out the superstructure — the steel girder — package, which also includes the steel reinforcement for the deck,” Friestch said of the material bids. “Basically, it includes everything we need to be able to set it on some abutments and pour some concrete on it and call it a bridge”

Frietsch also noted he is still getting its building materials together. Jasper County has not bid out the substructure steel just yet. The lead time for these steel materials is between seven months to one year. It is estimated the county will receive the steel by next summer.

“We have the three that we already bid … We got two 80-footers and a 120-footer coming,” Frietsch said of other bridge projects. “We might have those bridge beams by the winter and then we’ll be building those in the spring. As soon as we get done with those three we’ll switch into these four.”

Altogether, the county has about nine bridge projects planned out.

Materials for all four bridges were let out through the local bidding process, allowing for plenty of opportunity for contractors to bid on it. Still, only one contracting company submitted bids for the project. Frietsch said even though Oden Enterprises was the only bidder, the county gets fair prices from them.

Here are the bids from Oden Enterprises for each of the four bridges, as well as the engineer’s estimate:

• $376,910.36 for Bridge M03, estimated at $380,000

• $120,973.22 for Bridge H08, estimated at $125,000

• $61,681.77 for Bridge A08, estimated at $110,000

• $61,681.77 for Bridge L01, estimated at $110,000

While the county is receiving FEMA reimbursement for the bridges, Frietsch was surprised to see the bids for the 50-foot bridge beams — A08 and L01 — came in significantly underestimate.