State orders FC bridge closure

In a letter dated Friday, May 19 to the Franklin County Board of Supervisors, the Mississippi Office of State Aid Road Construction ordered the immediate closure of a 78-year-old bridge on GP Mill Road in Roxie.

The bridge, reportedly constructed in 1945, was required to be closed to all traffic within 24 hours of the notification, which was received on Monday, May 22.
The bridge, around which there is no detour route and leads to an old sawmill site, is located north of U.S. Highway 84 and is an offshoot of Shillings Road inside Roxie’s corporate limits.
The most recent written inspection report for the GP Mill Road bridge, conducted in 2022 and posted to the OSARC website, found the substructure to be in poor condition — with a rating of 4 on a 10-point scale — while the deck, superstructure and channel ratings were considered “fair” with marks of 5 on the same scale.

The letter states any repairs undertaken by the county on the bridge structure while it is closed would be subject to a reinspection before it could be utilized again by the traveling public.
Otherwise, the county could opt to permanently close the bridge.
Supervisors were asked to notify OSARC of their intentions where the infrastructure is concerned by Friday, June 2.
Twelve other structurally deficient bridges in Franklin County have been closed to the motorists, including two on County Lake Road off Mississippi Highway 33; Neil Hill Road over Hiram Branch; Monroe Road near Bude; Lucien Road over McCall Creek; Low Water Bridge Road over McGehee Creek; Lucien Road South; Bonds Road over Morgan Fork Creek; Wactor Road over Cameron Creek; Wright Road over Homochitto River; Barfoot Circle; and Eddiceton Circle.
In all, Franklin County has a total of 105 bridges with 52 on the State Aid system and 53 on the local road network.