Work begins on FEMA-funded project to rebuild washed out Warren Bridge approach
Times photo / Jessi Dreckman Large piles of gravel and other materials were brought in to Warren Bridge on County Road 328 recently in preparation for a project that aims to rebuild the approach to the east end of the bridge. As of Monday, traffic was still able to pass over the bridge. Eastern District Commissioner Gary Collins said there likely will be a few days when the bridge will be completely closed to traffic so the work can be completed. When that happens, the crews will install signs at either end of the county road, on FF and H highways, announcing the bridge closure, Collins said.
Eastern District Commissioner Gary Collins said Monday that work has begun to rebuild the east-side approach to Warren Bridge over Bryant Creek on County Road 328. The bridge, which is frequently used by floaters as a take-out on the Bryant, is located about 15 miles northeast of Gainesville and 11 miles southwest of Dora.
“It’s on the east side of the bridge. It’s all tore out and needs to be rebuilt up with dirt and whatever else we can find,” Collins said at Monday’s meeting of the Ozark County Commissioners. “They’re getting started today – getting everything ready to get started anyway.”
“Will there be a need for that bridge to be closed?” Presiding Commissioner John Turner asked.
“Well, I’d rather it was closed on account of aggravating the people working over here. Because you’d get a backhoe set up, and digging . . . and then here comes the traffic… So we’ll probably just close it at both ends and people can go around for a few days.”
Collins said the crews would put signage at both sides of the county road alerting motorists to the bridge closure when it happens.
“The way the water [of Bryant Creek] is now… it’s gotten so much wider there,” Turner said.
“Yeah, the conservation department argued with me several years ago. They had about 7 acres there, and now they don’t have but about a half-acre, at the most,” Collins said, referring to the Missouri Department of Conservation and the property it owns on the southeast side of the bridge. “I said all I wanted to do is move one little island above the bridge. They said no, that’s Mother Nature. Fine… but now it’s taken that whole end and deteriorated it. There just ain’t nothing there anymore.”
Collins said he figures the bridge project will take about three weeks, “give or take, depending on the weather.”
Collins said the work on the bridge approach is the last of Ozark County’s projects that were funded through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in relation to damage sustained here during an historic flood in spring 2017.