CLEVELAND — A piece of concrete broke off from an abutment connected to the Lake Avenue Bridge in Cleveland.
The bridge is owned and maintained by Norfolk Southern.
Niki Hudson, who lives in the neighborhood and is a member of the group "Friends of Lake Avenue Bridge," told News 5 that she was standing with her dog in that exact spot where the concrete slab fell earlier Wednesday night.
Thursday morning, she noticed the damage and began photographing it with her phone.
"I was taking my kids to school, and, you know, I was turning off Desmond on to Lake Avenue, and immediately it caught my eye that there was all this debris on the sidewalk," said Hudson. "You know, huge concrete chunks. And then I saw where it came from, you know, up on the abutment wall.”
Hudson told News 5 that her first thought was she hoped that nobody was hurt.
“Because I know if somebody had been walking past or walking their dog like I was, those chunks could easily have killed somebody. That's how big they were," said Hudson.
The bridge was built in 1912 and is designated a Cleveland historic landmark.
Hudson said she was able to secure preliminary approval for the bridge to be listed as a national landmark.
For the past eight years, the “Friends of Liberty Bridge” has fought to get Norfolk-Southern to keep it up and treat it like the landmark it is.
In November 2021, News 5 was there as Hudson and the group hung signs on the Tressel and called for repairs to fix the crumbling bridge.
RELATED: Frustrated neighbors push for repairs to bridge in Detroit Shoreway neighborhood
In May 2023, following the disaster in East Palestine, Senator Sherrod Brown demanded Norfolk Southern to fix the Lake Avenue Bridge and 15 rail properties in Cleveland.
A spokesperson for Norfolk Southern emailed News 5 to say that since 2023, their teams have completed preventative repairs and mitigation work on the Lake Avenue Bridge.
The email said Norfolk Southern crews cleaned up the sidewalk below and met with the city’s engineering and building departments. They maintain the bridges are subject to regular structural inspections.
“They need to do actually what the law says they're supposed to do," said Hudson. "The law requires that the bridge is water tight. The law requires them to keep the roadway free of debris, and it requires them to prevent, you know, pieces of concrete from falling on pedestrians and vehicles passing beneath it."
A Norfolk Southern spokesperson told News 5 that they have an engineering team out inspecting the damage on the Lake Avenue Bridge and assessing whether or not there's any necessary remediation.
They also point out that all of their bridges are maintained according to federal regulations
