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New appreciation for little-sung hero
I remember about a decade ago, as I walked across Hoover Dam, realizing that dams — and the complex system of water management — truly are among the unsung heroes of civilization. What does a dam so far from us have to do with anything? Nothing directly, but it also put me in mind of other critical infrastructure we rarely think about until there is a problem. Infrastructure like bridges. You probably know where I'm going with this, and, yes — I mean bridges like the one on Highway 50 that spans Blue Mesa Reservoir. It turns out, they're pretty important to a functioning society, too. As you've heard by now, an inspection discovered cracking in the steel, and the bridge was closed to all traffic Thursday. Direct access between here and Gunnison is cut off indefinitely, really upending things for a lot of folks, and not just for recreational travel, or, for me, my preferred route to the Front Range. It is affecting people who live on one side of that bridge, but work or go to school on the other. Or who have critical medical appointments on the opposite side of the bridge from them — dialysis, cancer treatments for folks in Gunnison who ordinarily go to Montrose, for instance. That's a pretty big deal. It's also playing havoc with routine medical transports between Gunnison and Montrose, not to mention law enforcement response. Fortunately, affected counties are working together, along with the state, to take care of that issue as best possible. For ordinary traffic, the detour is several hours out of the way, either down I-70 or U.S. 160. Yes, as of Monday, the Lake City cutoff is an option, but folks like Gunnison's Sheriff Adam Murdie want you to know it is an extremely limited one: it will be open once in the morning and once in the evening for critical local traffic only. According to Murdie, a couple of cars have already tried to skirt the roadblock. They were caught, and ticketed. So, in a plea on behalf of state and local officials, do not use the cutoff unless you absolutely have to, and please be aware of the limited opening times. Don't try to sneak around barricades. Everyone knows it's a cruddy situation; nobody likes it. While you're at it, please bear in mind the bridge damage was found precisely because the government was concerned enough about bridges of its age and construction that it ordered inspections. There was no sinister motive to deliberately cut off Gunnison from the Montrose/Delta area. It simply that there was an inspection and it did what inspections are supposed to do: it found a problem before there was a tragedy. And that's something to be grateful for. - Katharhynn, from the Newsroom. PS: There will be a Zoom meeting about the bridge at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 23. Link here
Speaking of Highway 50 ... ... It was closed for several hours Monday, south of Olathe, due to reports that a man had barricaded himself in a home near the road. The sheriff's office said he was a possible suspect in a shooting that had been reported the night before. The highway was finally reopened a little after 5; it closed at about 11 a.m. The person is in custody.
Here is a shot Joseph Harold took of traffic being rerouted.
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