CINCINNATI — Flammable items are stored underneath some Cincinnati bridges despite the devastating fire at a wooden playground below the Daniel Carter Beard (or Big Mac) Bridge more than a month ago.
Last week the WCPO 9 I-Team toured several bridges over interstates and highways and discovered that combustible items such as wood boards, posts and pallets, rubber guardrail blocking, tarps, cardboard and plastic conduit were stored underneath.
Some are storage hotspots that ODOT has been focused on for years — such as the U.S. 127 bridge over I-75 and Mill Creek, where the City of Cincinnati often stored flammable items underneath, according to internal ODOT emails obtained through public records requests.
“I just think maybe federal highways and, and DOTS (departments of transportation) need to just think about collectively what is going on underneath our bridges,” said Casey Jones, a Kansas-City-based engineer who featured the Big Mac Bridge fire on his YouTube channel.
“That fire was like a blowtorch … plastic, rubber, those are all petroleum products,” Jones said about the materials in the 1000 Hands Playground in Sawyer Point Park where the fire ignited and spread to the Big Mac Bridge above. “If you can get them to ignite, they'll burn at very high temperatures very rapidly, almost explosively.”
The I-Team is trying to learn as much as it can about the Big Mac fire because the 48-year-old bridge carries more than 100,000 vehicles per day. Although repairs are underway, the ongoing closure of its southbound lanes continues to snarl traffic and impede commerce in the I-471 corridor. It is set to reopen in March.
The Federal Highway Administration urged state bridge inspectors to watch out for flammable material stored beneath bridges after a fire on the Santa Monica Freeway a year ago and sent photos of what caught on fire.
“You can see there are shipping pallets, cardboard, vehicles and other flammable items that were being stored under the bridge,” ODOT spokesperson Matt Bruning said. “This is what the Federal Highway Administration was asking states to look for in their November 15, 2023 memo.”
The I-Team discovered some of the same highly burnable items underneath Cincinnati bridges last week and they remained at one site on Monday.
Last week the I-Team contacted ODOT about the wooden pallets and stacks of cardboard being stored underneath the Freeman Avenue bridge over U.S. 50.
Afterward, two state inspectors visited the site. Then ODOT sent a warning letter to the private property owner, 1029 W Seventh Street LLC, on Dec. 5 asking to remove the items from ODOT’s right of way within seven days.
“The items found here are not safe to be stored under bridges. ODOT had previously asked the property owner to remove items found under the bridge,” Bruning said.
“Items made of wood, rubber, and plastic are of extreme concern. Items and materials that are flammable, explosive or hazardous require immediate action for removal as they pose a risk of a fire event,” according to the Dec. 5 letter.
Other ODOT emails obtained by the I-Team reveal that this site has a history of storage problems.
“There are always trucks stored under the bridge on the north side of Dalton Ave.,” ODOT District 8 Structures Planning Engineer Brandon Collett wrote in a November 17, 2023, email to bridge inspectors laying out concerns about bridge fires in Hamilton County.
“There is an agreement that allows them to use for parking, but prohibits storage of materials, flammable substances, fueling trucks etc. My concerns here are that we don’t know what is in their trucks and we’ve had to notify them more than once for storing materials including a huge amount of steel spools,” Collett wrote. “If we think about revoking their agreement (which the agreement allows), we would need to put up a fence.”
The I-Team also discovered what appeared to be several large plastic tubes, hoses and balls of tarps underneath the I-74 bridge over Mill Creek on Dec. 2. When we returned a week later, all items had been removed.
“This is not city property; this is an active construction site and is well attended daily,” Bruning said. “The items you saw on Monday were part of the paint containment system the contractor had been using as part of the active project. The items have already been removed from the site. Additional construction materials in the area have also been hauled off-site as the project winds down for the winter season. It is very common for construction projects to temporarily store items.
“None of these items are stored there long-term. What our folks are looking for is obviously flammable items that are intended for long-term storage under bridges,” Bruning said.
The I-Team also visited the U.S. 127 bridge over I-75, which ODOT had identified as one of the city’s “problematic bridges,” in the email string last year. The site is near the city’s Environmental Health Department at 3845 William P Dooley Bypass.
When the I-Team visited the site on Dec. 2, it found large storage areas under several bridge spans where wood guardrail posts, wood form boards, unmarked buckets, and barrels of substances and wood pallets were being stored.
It turns out that ODOT bridge specialist Stephanie Lentz had flagged the same items during a Nov. 12 bridge inspection. A week later she emailed city officials asking for removal.
“The city has assured us it would be quickly addressed,” Bruning said.
City spokesperson Mollie Lair said, “I’m told since the city received that communication from ODOT both the Health Department and Department of Public Services have taken steps to begin removal of any items from that area.”
When the I-Team returned to the bridge on Monday, several city dump trucks, forklifts and other equipment were there, and workers were removing items.
That bridge had been on ODOT’s radar for at least a year, according to internal state emails obtained by WCPO.
“The city uses a couple spans to store construction/maintenance materials under the U.S. 127 bridge. I’ve noticed it to have significant issues such as large amounts of combustible/flammable material, but what is stored underneath is tends to vary at every inspection,” according to Collett’s Nov. 17, 2023 email about bridge fire concerns.
Collett also highlighted the Brent Spence Bridge as an area of concern for frequent storage of flammable items. When the I-Team visited last week, it was relatively empty.
Perhaps because ODOT has focused so intensely on the Brent Spence Bridge over the years.
“Recently, some homeless have taken up residence in at least one of them (abandoned trailers) … As I’m sure you are aware, homeless tend to make fires for cooking and heat which have lead to at least a dozen fires under our bridges,” Collett wrote. “There are also 4 dumpsters under the bridge. I’m not sure who’s those are or if they are still there. Every month there is something different under BSB. Looking into the future, we should think about making this unusable such as a grassy knoll.”
Anyone who sees issues beneath Ohio bridges is encouraged to contact ODOT. Use this link, and please select "highway concerns."
