Louisiana has no money to fix bridges linking MS & LA, a key hurricane evacuation route

Noting that another hurricane season is upon south Louisiana, some northshore legislators are urging the state to quickly reopen a series of bridges that have closed a stretch of U.S. 90 linking Louisiana and Mississippi.

The highway, they point out in a resolution the full House of Representatives recently approved, is a vital east-west artery that becomes busy when nearby Interstate 10 is either shut down or is clogged with evacuation traffic.

“My biggest concern is this is an evacuation route — an important one,” said Slidell Rep. Stephanie Berault, one of the sponsors of the resolution. “In the short term, we need to figure out a way to get these open. At a minimum get them open temporarily.”

The state Department of Transportation and Development said it continues to assess the bridges along U.S. 90 near the Louisiana-Mississippi line, but that they remain structurally unfit. And a solution doesn’t appear to be very close. DOTD estimates show replacing the unsound bridges — there are five in a 3.3-mile stretch — will cost upward of $350 million.

“I know they’re working on it. I know they’re trying to assess it,” DOTD spokesperson Daniel Gitlin said.

“The reality is the money is not there.”

Commonly known as Highway 90, the stretch of highway has been closed near the state line since May 2022, after DOTD said several bridges over various parts of the Pearl River were structurally unsound. The bridges date to the 1930s, the biggest of which is a drawbridge spanning the West Pearl.

Maritime traffic would also have to be taken into account with any bridge replacement, with DOTD working in connection with the Coast Guard.

The recent House resolution, which was co-authored by Reps. Mark Wright, R-Covington, and Brian Glorioso, R-Slidell, follows a push last year from northshore lawmakers to get the bridges reopened.

While traffic counts through that stretch of highway show only a few thousand vehicles used it daily as of 2021, the highway was a popular route from St. Tammany to the Mississippi Gulf Coast for some drivers.

But more importantly, Berault says, it’s a desperately needed alternative to I-10 during times of evacuation or when I-10 is closed for construction or crashes, which happens periodically and can produce traffic snarls stretching miles into Mississippi and Slidell.

“People are really frustrated,” Berault said. “I hear it a lot. It seems like we’re always having problems on I-10 at the Louisiana-Mississippi line.”

Berault said the earliest date she’s heard for the bridges to be replaced is 2028.

“That’s a lot of hurricane seasons,” she said.

But Gitlin said allowing vehicles to use the bridges, knowing they’re not structurally sound, could lead to bigger problems.

“If the bridge is not structurally sound and we put traffic on it that could lead to a disaster,” he said.