Huddled in the bow of a patrol boat, a group of Gunnison students clung together with their heads down to shield their cheeks from the icy cold rain and whipping winds that are typical on any given afternoon on Blue Mesa Reservoir.
Snacks for the voyage were provided by Gunnison High School’s principal and National Parks Service officers piled thick windbreaker coats around the students and their backpacks. A boy in the fourth grade, with a fear of riding boats, sat quietly munching on a sandwich as crumbs fell across the deck.
The 30-minute commute across choppy waters Thursday wasn’t one the students had prepared or signed up for — but the only way to get home from school after an inspection of the U.S. 50 bridge over the reservoir earlier that day revealed a 3-inch crack in structural steel.
The unexpected closure of the bridge, which links Montrose and Gunnison, left people stranded on either side of the closure, including a group of school kids whose only options to join their classmates in Gunnison were to face the rolling caps of Colorado’s largest reservoir or take a seven-hour journey to school one-way over precarious mountain passes.
“It is very cold in the morning — 20-something degrees, and so everyone was in their snowsuits with a lifejacket on,” said Kendal Rota, a mother of three who used to drive about a dozen students who live near Sapinero and Cimarron to school on a minibus before the crack was discovered.
On Monday, nine students boarded the Rotas’ pontoon boat after saying goodbye to their teachers and classmates, knowing it would be their last day of school for the year before finishing the final six weeks by home-school.
Transportation officials opened a detour around the bridge Monday, allowing residents of Gunnison, Montrose and Hinsdale counties to drive across a rugged county road for “critical local travel” two times a day. Still, the two-hour commute behind a pilot car driving 25 mph would make it hard to get to school on time, Rota said.
“That’s too much for the little kids,” she said, adding that the parents of two high school students, who must attend school in person, are working to find housing so that half their family can stay in town during the school week with their kids and then come home on the weekends.
The Colorado Department of Transportation said crews are assessing and developing repair plans for the bridge and hope to bring in Kiewit Infrastructure Co., a company with experience on major infrastructure projects in Colorado. The company worked to make temporary repairs to U.S. 34 through Big Thompson Canyon after massive flooding in September 2013 damaged the highway and two years later was hired for the permanent repairs.
On Monday, CDOT rope teams rappelled over the side of the bridge to grind off paint for a better look at weld joints and potential defects, while crews in a “snooper truck” — an underbridge inspection bucket truck — evaluated the underside of the bridge.
But a timeline for reopening the bridge remains unclear, leaving thousands of residents forced to make sacrifices and scramble for solutions to get to work, doctor appointments and go about daily life in the meantime.
Stormy and Andy Cochran, owners of local outfitter GSO Fishing, started offering to shuttle people, pets and prescriptions from one side of the reservoir to the other, free of charge.
“It wasn’t a decision,” Stormy Cochran said. “We all know what it’s like when your back is up against the wall and it’s really hard and you just don’t know what to do, you don’t know who to turn to. If we can help anyone make this easier, that’s what we want to do.”
Requests for ferry services quickly poured in. One came from a family in Gunnison trying to get their son home after he visited his grandmother in Montrose. With the bridge open, that car ride would typically take a little over an hour.
Fifteen relatives need help crossing the reservoir to get to their parents’ funeral in early May. Another family asked for help shuttling their dog across Blue Mesa. One GSO Fishing guide helped a group of people from Spain, who were biking to Las Vegas, across the reservoir with their bikes.
“There’s been so many different requests and needs — it’s been overwhelming and wonderful at the same time,” Cochran said.
“We’re still trying to recruit more boats to haul everyone across.”
Economic impacts
CDOT Director Shoshanna Lew acknowledged the bridge closure’s impact on tourism in the area during a briefing last week.
“We are absolutely aware of the economic significance of this area,” Lew said. “We focus first and foremost on emergency services, health care, schools and the kind of day-to-day needs that the local communities will face most acutely, but the economic significance from a tourism perspective is also very central. And we certainly know how important that is as we ramp into the summer months.”
The Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and Curecanti National Recreation Area pump millions of dollars into the regional economy each year. While both remain open, the bridge closure could cause significant monetary impacts to the community, park superintendent Stuart West said.
According to a 2022 National Parks Service report, more than 297,000 visitors to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison poured nearly $21 million into the economy. Nearby Curecanti National Recreation Area saw 992,749 visitors who spent $49.3 million.
An overwhelming majority of visitors who contribute to the spending (98.7% to Black Canyon and 88.2% to Curecanti) are not local, West said.
“The NPS is also keenly aware of the potential economic impacts of the closure and we will continue to support CDOT’s efforts and encourage park visitation while meeting CDOT’s needs,” he said in an email.
The Blue Mesa Reservoir is the centerpiece to the area’s recreation industry. Tourism on the reservoir took a hit from the pandemic and low water levels, when many believed the boat ramps were closed, said Cochran, who has managed fishing trips with her husband along the reservoir for the past 18 years. Visitors traveling for fishing trips will likely still come this season, but Cochran worries for the outfitters in the area who rely on road transportation.
“Yes, the bridge is closed and it makes things harder,” she said, “but Gunnison and Blue Mesa are not closed.”
Kendal and Joe Rota, who own the Sapinero Village Campground tucked above the reservoir, rely on tourists during the busy summer months and fear what the temporary closure will mean for their business.
“I’ve had people calling canceling their reservations in June and July already and so this is something that’s really heavy on my heart,” Kendal Rota said. “Every single reservation and every single day counts. And every day lost, I can never make that up.”
“A topic of concern”
The abrupt shutdown of the bridge came at the urging of federal highway officials last week after crews found the crack during a mandatory inspection of the high-strength steel bridge. The inspection was required because of known issues with similarly constructed bridges around the country.
Construction on the bridge project began in April 1961, and the “Middle Bridge” opened Nov. 29, 1962, to fanfare that included a large contingent of state and national officials in attendance. At that time, it was lauded as the highest highway bridge in Colorado and the largest single contract project in the history of the Colorado Department of Highways.
The $3.4 million contract covered the cost of the 1,500-foot-long Middle Bridge, a smaller 900-foot bridge to the west, and just over six miles of highway construction. The H. E. Lowdermilk Co. of Englewood was the contractor and the J. A. Park Machinery Co. of Pueblo was the subcontractor.
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Bridge over Blue Mesa Reservoir closed indefinitely due to 3-inch-long crack in steel beam
The indefinite closure will create significant detours, adding between six to seven hours of travel, for drivers between Gunnison and Montrose
Read moreThey built the bridge using a new “high-strength steel” — T-1 — developed by US Steel’s American Bridge Division in Gary, Ind. US Steel had first marketed T-1 in 1952 and began using it in bridges in 1959.
The steel girders in the Middle Bridge were fabricated from T-1, an alloy steel, which was touted as being 25% stronger than carbon steel and was also much lighter. Gunnison Pioneer Museum newspaper files report that the T-1 girders were maneuvered into place with cranes that were guided by construction operators in a control booth wielding walkie-talkies to tell workers where to bolt the girders to rocker plates on the bridge piers. No field welding was required because the high-strength steel bolts were thought to be enough to hold the girders in place.
In 2022, a Federal Highway Administration report identified a “topic of concern” for bridges built with T-1 steel between 1959 and 1978. Around 224,000 bridges in the U.S. were identified as needing major work, and 78,000 were said to need replacement.
The 800-foot-long Sherman-Minton Bridge over the Ohio River between Louisville, Kentucky, and Indiana was closed for five months in 2011 after inspectors found cracks in ties made of T-1 steel and repairs were done.
The Hernando de Soto Bridge on Interstate 40 over the Mississippi River between Memphis, Tennessee, and Arkansas was partially closed in 2021 when fractures were found in girders made of T-1 steel on the 900-foot-long structure.
The Middle Bridge and the smaller bridge two miles to the west are the only two bridges in Colorado constructed of T-1 steel.
While traveling by boat saves several hours of travel around the Middle Bridge closure, Cochran described the conditions over the weekend as “brutal.”
“The wind in the afternoon on Blue Mesa is no joke and then especially in the spring, it starts rollin’ and white cappin’ pretty good in the afternoon, so that makes things harder,” she said. “But our guides are seasoned, they’ve been doing it for decades and so they’re doing amazing jobs getting everyone (there) safely.”
Freelance journalist Nancy Lofholm contributed to this story.