water under troubled bridges

My hometown, Clearwater, has a long sad history when it comes to bridges.

There was the Highway 19 overpass, over Gulf to Bay Boulevard, which couldn't be opened for months because somebody forgot to design (and construct) an expansion joint. It sat out in the hot summer sun for months with water trickling off of it until they fixed the problem. (It was a good fix. The overpass is still there.)

There was the bridge from Clearwater Beach Island to Sand Key, which the locals hated from the get-go. The bridge sagged ten inches one day after giving some city employees enough advance warning to be able to do something about it. That one's been replaced. (The locals hated it because it opened up Sand Key for development, and because it ruined the spot on the south end of the beach where we took the girls to watch the submarine races.)

Now we have the new $69 million bridge from the mainland to the beach. It was looking good, and the city was taking credit for it, until a section of the roadway sank and twisted. They replaced that. Then they found cracks in the four main columns. They built two new columns around each cracked one, and removed the cracked ones. Another section of roadway sank seven inches overnight. They repositioned that one. They found cracks in a section of the south span. They removed and replaced that one.

Finally, today was supposed to be opening day, but the opening has been postponed while they finish one small detail: Paving the roadway. The city quit taking credit for this bridge (a state road department bridge) a long time ago. Now we just keep our fingers crossed.