Bridges and El Nino By Elizabeth Rosenberg

According the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction center, this year’s El Nino event is “significant and strengthening,” evidence of this is based on current atmospheric and oceanic features, including warming sea surface temperatures. In a recent advisory report, the NOAA stated, “There is a greater than 90% chance that El Nino will continue through Northern Hemisphere winter 2015-16, and around an 85% chance it will last into early spring 2016.”

There are 25,406 bridges in California and 8,035 in Arizona. In both states, 1 in 10 bridges are rated as structurally deficient, falling in line with the national average and meaning they require significant maintenance, rehabilitation, or replacement due to deterioration or damage. In California and Arizona, about 17% and 13% of bridges respectively, are functionally obsolete, meaning they no longer meet current design codes. This means that in the two states, close to 1 in 4 bridges are deficient, and with numbers this extreme, it is vital for safety that they be strengthened and brought up to code standards. Infrastructure repair and improvement is a serious topic and has been at the top of the nation’s agenda for some time; state-of-the-art improvements in material and construction methods, provide a positive outlook. In a continuous effort to repair infrastructure and prevent the loss of lives and resources, HJ3 engineers innovative solutions to strengthen bridges and overpasses, repairing deficient structures with advanced composite solutions.