The covered bridge damaged when a dump truck plummeted through its deck won’t be repaired until spring.
Joshua Polewarzyk was driving a Ford F750 about 12:45 p.m. Friday when he tried to cross the covered bridge connecting Windham and Gorham, according to the Gorham Police Department.
The truck plummeted through the floor of the wooden bridge into the Presumpscot River below.
The Ford weighs 36,000 pounds, well beyond the 6,000 pound limit for the bridge. The Maine Department of Transportation said that the weight limit was first posted in 1983 and hasn’t changed since.
The Maine State Police issued Polewarzyk a $2,500 weight violation for the crash.
Engineers inspected the bridge on Monday and determined some of its beams had been damaged when the truck went through the deck, according to the Department of Transportation.
State workers can repair the bridge without the need for contractors, but the department said that lumber will need to be milled specifically to match the species and dimensions of the lumber on the bridge.
It will likely take several months to procure the materials. Construction isn’t likely to begin until spring, and it’s not yet known how much the repairs will cost.
The structure, known as Babb’s Bridge, connects Hurricane Road in Gorham to Covered Bridge Road in Windham. The bridge was built in 1840. It was the oldest covered bridge in Maine until vandals burned it in 1973. The Maine Department of Transportation built an exact replica of the bridge using lumber milled in Gorham and “historically authentic construction techniques,” it said in a news release.
About 360 vehicles cross the bridge on average every day.
Babb’s Bridge is inspected at least every two years. The last inspection took place at the end of last month, according to the Department of Transportation.
