New hole opens up on I-77 bridge in York County years after repairs

YORK COUNTY, S.C. — Crews are working to repair a hole in a South Carolina bridge that tens of thousands of people use each day to get from York County to Chester county.

In viewer video sent to Channel 9 from beneath the bridge on Interstate 77, you can see the sun shining through the hole as cars drive over it.

“I come back through this way, and there’s a whole big hunk of concrete,” a motorist said. “Right there on the side of the road.”

Channel 9 South Carolina reporter Greg Suskin reached out to the Department of Transportation and learned this is the same hole that they fixed in 2014.

Those repairs on the I-77 bridge over Highway 901 held up for years but DOT crews will be making new repairs until at least Wednesday.

Over the weekend, several people sent Greg photographs from underneath I-77 of a hole that stretches all the way through to the road, and pieces of concrete on the ground, where they fell from the bridge above.

DOT officials said the interstate bridges were not built for the kind of traffic that they endure each day now -- more than 30,000 cars a day.

The state was told about the bridge issue on Sunday and immediately shut down one southbound lane for emergency repairs.

Channel 9 has also learned about a huge project on I-77 in York County that will start in May and will impact 120,000 drivers a day.

The DOT plans to replace the entire southbound side of the bridge deck on the Catawba River Bridge between Rock Hill and Fort Mill.

The area is the heaviest commuter path from York County into Charlotte.

The project will take weeks to complete and will cause shutdowns of lanes daily.

Cox Media Group