Crews Place Bridge In Urbandale's Walker Johnston Park Wednesday

Morris Grotheer and his wife can’t wait for the bridge to be replaced.

Almost every day Grotheer and wife drive out to the park they once walked to, and check on the bridge’s progress. Grotheer said it’s been hard to get adjusted to not having the bridge since it was washed out in a flood last summer.

“We would walk this way to go to the library,” Grotheer said. “We really miss this bridge.”

The bridge, which has been under construction for three weeks, is intended to replace a previous bridge that was lost during heavy rains and flooding in August of 2010. Kirt Kramme, an employee with Herberger Construction, of Indianola, said that he expects to be finished with the bridge this week.

“We get this up and we’re done,” Kramme said.

Elder Construction, the prime contractor, still has more work to do at the site, but Kramme and the rest of the crew from Herberger Construction said that they expect to finish the bridge before the end of the week. Kramme said work stalled on the bridge over the past three weeks due to rain delays.

“We only had one full week,” Kramme said. “The other two weeks we had rain days.”

As for Grotheer, he’s tickled pink that the bridge is being replaced. While Grotheer can’t wait to stroll across the bridge, he said he hopes the structure is up to the test of Iowa’s often unpredictable weather.

“The real test will be if the bridge can withstand a flood like the one that took the other bridge out,” Grotheer said.