Don’t look now, but bridge talk is back.
What began as rumblings following a potentially disastrous barge collision with the Brooks Bridge on March 20 now is almost certain to grow into a full-blown conversation about replacing the aging structure.
That’s because state Senate President Don Gaetz, at the request of the city of Fort Walton Beach and the Chamber of Commerce, has secured what will likely be hundreds of thousands of dollars for a “project development and environmental study for the replacement of Brooks Bridge.”
Chamber President and CEO Ted Corcoran said the request for funds to update existing plans to replace the bridge or build a second one connecting Fort Walton Beach to Okaloosa Island was made to Gaetz shortly after a crane on a barge hit the bridge.
The Florida Department of Transportation closed the bridge for several hours while initial repairs were made.
“The business community was absolutely affected by the March 20 closing,” Corcoran said. “It resurrected concerns for our community that at some point in time something may need to be done.”
The Brooks Bridge was built in 1966. It carries a “C” grade for structural soundness and an “F” grade for capacity.
But finding community consensus to take action historically has been more than difficult.
In 1990 and again in 2001, bridge authorities were formed to plan and build a second bridge. Community uproar doomed both efforts.
“Certainly, it would be nice to do something, but the community has to get behind it for anything to happen,” said Tom Rice, who still is considered chairman of 2001’s now dormant Emerald Coast Bridge Authority.
Gaetz, who helped get about $300 million set aside next year for road projects in Northwest Florida, wasn’t certain how much the DOT would provide for the bridge studies.
He was adamant that he was taking no sides “on where a (replacement) bridge ought to be or what kind of bridge it ought to be.”
“I was simply responding as a senator to a request for the district, to a request from the chamber and city of Fort Walton Beach,” he said.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Tom McLaughlin at 850-315-4435 or tmclaughlin@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomMnwfdn.