Vol. 135 - No. 120

Partly sunny with a slight chance of showers in the morning then mostly cloudy with a chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs in the mid-70s. Chance of rain 50 percent.

Full report, A3

16 pages

Classi� ed ......................... B4

Comics ............................. A7

Lifestyles ......................... A4

Lottery ............................. A9

Opinion ........................... A8

Public Notices ............... B5

Sports ............................... B1

$1.00

•FayeM.Johnson,75•EvelynR.Kirkwood,82•AllanW.Lilja,78•JeanD.Lorenzo,94•PatriciaPopson,80,

A paving bid that came in about $100,000 less than two competitors is being examined by Clearfi eld Borough’s engineer before it will be awarded. A2

Toddler drownsA 15-month-old child

died at a Philadelphia hos-pital after drowning at a family pool in the Harris-burg suburbs. A6

Heat waveArizona is in the midst

of a prolonged heat wave that has produced record-high temperatures in Phoenix. A10

Low bid catchescouncil’s eye

Tomorrow’s Forecast

Index

ObituariesA9

MORE INSIDE

Page B2

William Boyle, front, targets a softball on top of a traffic cone as Billy Wallace, both of Fourth Ward Hose Co. No. 4, holds the hose at DuBois Area High School Thursday evening during the final day of the DuBois firefighters competition. This is the 65th year of the city fire companies competing. More photos and story Page A2. (Photo by Scott Shindledecker)

By Katie Weidenboerner

katiew@thecourierexpress.com

RIDGWAY — A portion of a 103-year-old bridge collapsed Thursday afternoon, injuring three workers and shutting down traffi c on a major route through Elk Coun-ty. Around 2 p.m. Thursday, a partial col-lapse of the North Broad Street Bridge, which carries Route 219 over the Elk Creek in Ridgway, sparked a response from mul-tiple emergency response agencies from surrounding municipalities.“The excavator was sitting in the middle of the bridge, and two guys were walking across the bridge, and it just collapsed,” Ridgway Fire Chief Scott Pontious said. Like many of the bystanders who fl ocked to the bridge to see the site for themselves, Pontius saw the grainy, black-and-white surveillance video from nearby H & A Hardware which shows two workers in hard hats walking near an excavator at the center of the bridge before the concrete surface fell toward the creek below.Hardware store salesman Roger Neu-reiter said when the bridge fell, the store shook slightly.Paul Roman, president of Francis J. Palo Inc., the contractor on the $2.2 project to rebuild the bridge, said about 10 work-

ers were on site at the time of the collapse. Two of the injured workers were from a subcontractor and were on site to cut the substructure of the bridge. One sustained a broken ankle and the other had head in-juries and was fl own by helicopter to an-other hospital. Roman added that Palo’s construction superintendent was on the bridge deck when it fell - he had already been dis-charged from the hospital.

The southbound lane of the bridge was open at the time, however no motorists or passenger vehicles were on the bridge when the other side crumbled. For several weeks, northbound traffi c was being de-toured while crews worked to demolish and rebuild that side of the bridge.“A couple of beams failed and it went down like a ‘V’,” Roman said. “I can’t tell you that this has ever happened before. Every precaution is always taken, and ev-erything is always done with a profession-ally engineered plan ... As for the why here - it was something out of the ordinary and something unexpected.” Until PennDOT inspectors can pinpoint the “why” and determine the bridge’s struc-tural integrity, it has been closed to traffi c.

About 5,500 vehicles use the bridge daily, nearly 10 percent of them trucks,

Ridgway bridge collapses; three workers injured

The cause of the bridge collapse Thursday on North Broad Street in Ridgway has not yet been determined. Work on the superstructure of the 103-year-old bridge began in March, with the $2.2 million project being awarded to contractor Francis J. Palo Inc. of Clarion. (Photo by Katie Weidenboerner)

People work after part of the 103-year-old North Broad Street Bridge collapsed Thursday in Ridgway. The collapse occurred in the northbound lane of the bridge, which carries U.S. Route 219 over Elk Creek in Ridgway. (AP Photo)

By Nick Hoffman

newsroom@thecourierexpress.com

DuBOIS — The DuBois City Council expressed frustration in its limited options in enforc-ing property maintenance ordi-nances.

“The city can only do so much,” City Manager John “Herm” Suplizio said during Thursday’s work session. “Some people just don’t have pride” in themselves or their properties.Code Enforcement Offi cer Zac Lawhead reviewed several properties owned by chronic of-fenders. He’s sent certifi ed let-ters and ticketed them and pur-sued action at the district judge’s offi ce but some owners remain non-compliant and defi ant.

A property in the 500 block of West Long Avenue was prom-

ised to be cleaned up last June. It hasn’t been.A property on Hope Street has grass estimated at 3 feet

high.A property on Franklin

Street was described as a “junk yard.”For the defi ant ones, failure to respond once the case reach-es District Judge Patrick Ford’s offi ce can result in the issuance of a warrant. Once that hap-pens, city police will serve the warrants, which can result in a trip to the county jail for defen-dants.Councilwoman Diane Ber-nardo suggested that it may be time to devote more resources, including staff, to code enforce-ment.A certifi ed letter has been

DuBois City Council continues to work on property maintenance

See Council, Page A9

See Bridge, Page A9

FRIDAY-SATURDAY, JUNE 19-20, 2015

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