The Woodstock Town Selectboard was informed at Tuesday night’s meeting that the Taftsville Bridge suffered more damage than originally thought as a result of Tropical Storm Irene flooding. The result is that engineers see a serious threat to the bridge as a whole from an unstable stone abutment on the Route 4 side and may need to temporarily take down part of the bridge.
Town Manager Phil Swanson describes it this way in an email to Woodstock Early Bird:
The Taftsville Covered Bridge was seriously damaged in the Tropical Storm Irene.
The bridge abutment on the Rt 4 side of the bridge is very unstable. If the abutment is unstable, then the bridge that rests on the unstable abutment is in danger.
The solution that is being proposed to the Town of Woodstock by the engineers at VTrans and the engineering firm of McFarland Johnson is to dismantle half of the bridge on the Route 4 side between the middle of the bridge towards Route 4. The roof, siding, flooring and floor support systems will be be removed from the bridge. Each piece will be labeled, photographed and tagged, stored off site for the winter and put back in place during the restoration project that is scheduled to begin in 2012. The arches will remain in place, and braced for extra support. There will be a coffer dam erected to keep the river flow away from the unstable abutment.
On Wed, Nov. 9 th at 7:00 pm at the Town Hall, the VTrans engineer responsible for the project will present the scope of work in greater detail to the Select Board and the community.
Julia Carlisle
Woodstock Early Bird 