page_title: Walnut Street Bridge (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania)
section_title: 1996 collapse
hierarchical_section_title: Walnut Street Bridge (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) / History / 1996 collapse
caption_attribution_description: Aerial view of Harrisburg — in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. With the damaged Walnut Street Bridge, partially spanning the Susquehanna River at Walnut Street. Image: HAER—Historic American Engineering Record images of Pennsylvania.
context_page_description: The Walnut Street Bridge also known as The People's Bridge, is a truss bridge that spanned the Susquehanna River in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania until 1996. Built by the Phoenix Bridge Company in 1890, it is the oldest remaining bridge connecting Harrisburg's downtown and Riverfront Park with City Island. Since flooding in 1996 collapsed sections of the western span, it no longer connects to the West Shore. The bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.
context_section_description: In January 1996, as a result of rising flood waters from the North American blizzard of 1996, the Walnut Street bridge lost two of its seven western spans when high floodwaters and a large ice floe lifted the spans off their foundations and swept them down the river. A third span was damaged and later collapsed into the river. This dramatic scene was recorded by an amateur videographer, and shown on national news clips. Shortly after the loss of the three western spans, the People's Bridge Coalition was formed to support the restoration of the bridge. Public surveys show overwhelming support for the restoration of the western spans. It is estimated that restoring the western span of the bridge will cost between $12–15 million (December 2005).
   Shortly after the 1996 collapse, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation contracted Modjeski and Masters, Inc., to perform an inspection and analysis to prevent the possibility of future collapse of the remaining structure. A $5 million rehabilitation project was later conducted on the eastern span of the bridge. The rehabilitation project was performed by IA Construction Corporation of Concordville, Pennsylvania. However the bridge was never finished and still sits incomplete as of June 2020.
caption: Western span of the Walnut Street Bridge in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania after it collapsed during the 1996 flood.
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