The Northern Pacific Railway bridge was built in 1897 and spans the Yellowstone River, running parallel to U.S 89 Park County. When the Yellowstone flooded, it caused major damage to the bridge, prompting Fish, Wildlife and Parks to close the Mayor's Landing Fishing access site, near the bridge.
But now, the bridge is not just at risk of falling into the river.
Engineering project manager Craig Walker says the bridge is now at risk of damaging the highway.
“It's a huge safety issue for the traveling public,” said Walker. “We had cameras set up monitoring the bridge for the last month, seeing if it was shifting.”
He said it needs to come down now so it doesn’t damage our road structure.
At 8:30 Wednesday the army came out to the bridge site and began to demolish it. Walker says it's kind of like training for them, but their efforts are making a huge impact.
“It’s a benefit for the army because they get to practice and it’s a benefit for us because the bridge is ready to fall down,” said Walker.
The road closed for about 20 minutes at a time as they detonate explosives. The bridge was destroyed by the end of the day.
Craig Gheling, a project engineer with Razz Construction says they should have the debris cleaned up sometime in the next 2 weeks.
“We'll get a crew out here sometime around September 6th depending on their availability,” said Gheling.
