1964 Sunshine Bridge over Mississippi River at Donaldsonville, LA

(Bridge Hunter; Historic Bridges; John A. Weeks III; Satellite)

The 8,236' [2510m] long bridge has an 825' [251m] span with 170' [52m] of clearance. The total length of the through truss is 3,300' [1006m]. [JohnWeeks]

JohnWeeks

Kenneth Lee Shaver posted
Sunshine Bridge SCF Mariner

Digitally Zoomed

 

David Webster posted
Drew Lugo: Sunshine bridge
[The Helena Bridge looks similar.]

LouisianaDigitalLibrary

I used "quoteblock" around the following, but it is not indenting the text to display it as a quote. And I tried using the "indent" formatting, but that also did not work. So what appears below until "(endquote)" is a quote.

Orgin of bridge name 

Written by Nick Boppel. Reuse of text exactly as written permitted .

I provided the following information to HistoricBridges.org about the origin of the name "Sunshine Bridge" and I figured I should probably provide it here too.

The bridge was constructed while renowned Louisiana singer and songwriter-turned-governor Jimmie Davis was in office. Davis rose to popularity as a singer with his hit song "You are My Sunshine". As governor, Davis was one of the strongest supporters of the bridge construction, as well as the proposed Arcadian Thruway (the toll highway that was meant to connect New Orleans with Lafayette while bypassing Baton Rouge). Obviously, the Arcadian Thruway was never built, but the Sunshine Bridge was a major component of the proposed project. When a name for the bridge was being sought, the then-retired Governor Davis declined an offer to have the named directly for him, and therefore it was named the "Sunshine Bridge" in reference to Davis' popular song (as there was strong support to memorialize Davis with the bridge in some way shape or form).

(endquote)

[via BridgeHunter]

You know you are in a southern state when salting a bridge makes the news. [brproud]

There have been at least 21 allisions with this bridge. Most of the allisions are with the fenders and support piers such as a 600' ocean-going tanker that hit a fender in June 2019. The fenders did their job because there was no structural damage to the bridge. But the fender system had to be replaced. But on Oct 12, 2018, a crane on a barge struck a lower chord. That allision closed the bridge completely for a month and partially for a few months as a $6m repair was done. [DailyComet]

LaDOT via RoadBridges

It looks like the barge kept on going and the crane bent some more truss members.

Screenshot

Screenshot

"In October 2018 a crane barge hit the bottom chord of one of the main spans of this bridge. The crash severely bent and smashed the bottom chord, although it did not break. Engineers noted that this fracture critical bridge, on paper, should have collapsed the bridge given the failure of a major member on this truss. However, as much as engineers like to condemn truss bridges as fracture critical, the truth is that failure of one member on a truss bridge is not a guarantee of total collapse. This bridge is a good example of that." [HistoricBridges]

A couple of Plaquemine Ferry boats added more hours of service to provide an alternative to the bridge. "25,000 travelers" normally use the bridge. [WAFB] I assume that is actually 25,000 vehicles per day.

The repair activity also caused some short closures to marine traffic. [LouisianaMaritime]

NTSB, p1 (source)

 

NTSB, p3 (source)

"The allision, which occurred as the vessel and tow attempted to go through the west bank span of the bridge, caused an estimated $8,500 in damages to the crane. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which released its Marine Accident Brief last month detailing the investigation into the incident, estimated that damage to the bridge totaled a staggering $6.7 million." [WaterJournal]