Permanent Morrison Bridge repairs set for April 2017

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The troubled Morrison Bridge is closing on November 6 for more repairs and inspection.

It’ll only be for a day, but Multnomah County is ready to start replacing the failing middle section of the bridge.

Money has been the main hold up on the repair process, but now the county has in hand millions of dollars for the fix.

Multnomah County has about $3 million in settlements so far with companies involved in what the county says is faulty material that started peeling off, screws coming loose on the bridge lift span and new material applied to provide better traction, all installed 5 years ago.

The county has been closing off lanes of the bridge as it made repairs and says the structure is still safe.

“The areas that were so scary that we saw in that video, those are areas where we have now injected dense material to stop the cracks from increasing. We will pull it all out and replace it with something that should last for the next 50 years, and it’s looked at more than any other bridge we have,” said Mike Pullen, a spokesman for Multnomah County.

A new contractor has been hired, and the plans to tear out the problem material and put in plain old concrete and steel will begin in April of 2017. That’s when the bridge will have just one lane open in each direction.