A truck squeezed under an old Island Highway pedestrian overpass this morning, but knocked concrete onto the roadway in the process.
Southbound traffic on old Island Highway in Nanaimo slowed after the overpass at Norwell Drive and Jingle Pot Road sustained damage. Police and firefighters were called out to the intersection at 10:30 a.m. Friday, Sept. 30, and a lane was closed off while crews cleaned debris and the structure was evaluated.
Capt. Earle Ten Have, with Nanaimo Fire Rescue, told the News Bulletin indications are the truck was driving with its rails up, just high enough to hit the bottom of the bridge, knocking off some concrete. The highway lanes were cleaned up and Mainroad Mid-Island Contracting is looking after the overpass structure.
“They’ll bring an engineer out to make sure all the high-tension lines and the rebar, everything is intact,” said Ten Have. “Right now it appears that just the concrete has been flaked off, so we made sure everything was tight up there, nothing’s going to fall on cars, but Mainroad’s going to be back to service that, make sure it’s structurally sound. Right now it’s shut off to pedestrian traffic.”
#TrafficAlert crews on scene near Norwell-Jingle Pot intersection in #Nanaimo. Looks like truck may have struck overpass. pic.twitter.com/6z99YAt0ng
— Karl Yu (@KarlYuBulletin) September 30, 2022
He didn’t know when repairs would be happening.
“It’s a holiday … so they’ll make sure it’s good for the weekend, whether they actually come back and start the rebuilding process, I don’t know when that starts,” said Ten Have.
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reporter@nanaimobulletin.com
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