The bridge crosses a wash in the Coachella Valley and collapsed during severe weather that hit the region on Sunday.
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The interstate “is probably the biggest movement corridor in and out of Southern California”, Kasinga said.
Hundreds of other cars were stranded immediately after the collapse, but the California Highway Patrol was working to divert them in the other direction off the freeway and it wasn’t clear if any remained, Kasinga said. The collapsed bridge was elevated about 15 feet above what is normally a dry stream bed.
A 30-foot section of a bridge above the 10 Freeway in Desert Center east of Coachella collapsed Sunday, trapping a truck driver. “This is the (Interstate) 10 and not the (Interstate) 8”.
Inspectors planned to assess all bridges along a 30-mile stretch of the interstate after a second bridge showed signs of damage following the storm, which sent torrents of water and debris through desert washes, Terri Kasinga, spokeswoman for the California Department of Transportation, said Monday.
Caltrans engineers are performing a damage assessment. “There’s no end to the cars that are stuck out here”.
“Oh my God, we are so stuck out here”, Browne told the Desert Sun newspaper. She was driving with her daughter from Flagstaff, Arizona to Palm Desert, California when the bridge collapsed. Onlookers had to tie the truck to a guardrail to prevent it from washing away in the flood waters.
“July rain is so unusual in Southern California that the storm broke a number of records for the month”.
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The unusual weather turned Los Angeles County’s typically packed beaches into empty stretches of sand when the threat of lightning strikes forced authorities to close 70 miles of beaches. How rare? It was the first time a Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim baseball game was rained out since 1995.
