Hartnell Avenue overpass to reopen; damage less severe than originally thought

March 27--Workers Thursday expect to reopen all lanes of the Hartnell Avenue overpass ripped open by a big rig's cargo nearly two months ago.

"It was... a lot less damage than we (initially) thought," said Denise Yergenson, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Transportation.

The northern half of the overpass had been closed since Jan. 30, when a car crusher atop a big rig crashed through two of the overcrossing's five supporting girders, according to the California Highway Patrol.

The partial closure reduce four traffic lanes across the bridge to two.

Repairs began about a month ago and cost about $300,000. That's $700,000 below initial estimates when engineers thought the damage was worse, Yergenson said.

"We thought we were going to have to support it from the bottom up," Yergenson said. "This one is minor damage... when we started investigating the bridge, we found we didn't have to shore it up."

Yergenson said workers plan to reopen the lanes between 8 a.m. and noon.

Cal Trans will seek to recoup its costs from the insurance company of the driver, Gonsalo De Jesus Chavez Garcia of Woodland, Yergenson said.

No court cases have yet been filed against Garcia in Shasta County Superior Court.

Garcia was trucking a car crusher southbound on Interstate 5 from Humboldt County to the Sacramento area. About 6:30 p.m.Jan. 30, he went under the Hartnell overpass, CHP officers have said.

They said Garcia hadn't properly loaded the crusher. That put it over 17 feet high -- too tall to be on the highway. It tore through the northern side of the overpass, scattering chunks of concrete in the roadway.

Southbound I-5 was closed for several hours as officers and Cal Trans engineers investigated.

The officer conducting the investigation, Reagan Locker, wasn't available for comment this afternoon.

workers replaced the rebar and concrete of the bridge over the previous month.

The repairs weren't as extensive at Hartnell as they were at the Walters Road overcrossing in Siskiyou County, which had to be rebuilt after a big rig hit it, Yergenson said.

"The Walters Road bridge, it was catastrophic," Yergenson said. "That one had to be completely replaced."

Workers may close intermittently some southbound I-5 lanes overnight between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. next week to put finishing touches on the bridge.

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