NIPIGON -- With traffic moving again over the new bridge on the edge of Nipigon, the town's mayor wants to know what went wrong and assurance it won't happen again.
"The question is, why did this happen?" asked Richard Harvey, the day after an expansion joint broke on the newly-constructed Nipigon River Bridge, severing the only road between Eastern and Western Canada.
"This is the type of thing that shouldn't happen. I wouldn't want to see this type of thing happen (within) 20 years, 30 years of it opening. The fact that within months of traffic going over the bridge, this has happened is a concern."
The completed half of the new cable-stayed bridge was opened to traffic on Nov. 29.
Ministry of Transportation engineers have begun what they're calling a "forensic" examination into the circumstances that led to bolts breaking on an expansion joint, causing the bridge to rise about 60 centimeters.
Harvey insisted once the investigation is complete, the province ought release its results to the public.
"I certainly would expect it's going to be released to the public," he said.
"Transparency, especially when it comes to public safety, is absolutely essential."
Where the nearby communities of Greenstone and Lake Helen First Nation declared states of emergency, Nipigon chose not to do so. Harvey did, however, order the town's community centre and Legion open for travelers who needed shelter from Sunday's cold.
"The reality is -- and this is why the new bridge is being built -- we have had, over the last number of years, have had highway closures on a more-than-we'd-prefer regular basis because of motor vehicle accidents," Harvey said.
"So we made the decision to treat this as any other highway closure. The only difference this time was, we didn't know how long it would be closed for."
He especially praised locals who opened their homes to families with children passing through Nipigon.
