Its subsidiary Parkersburg Bridge Partners is in charge of the estimated $50 million-dollar rehabilitation project that is expected to be complete Fall 2023.

Emily Duke, communications director for Parkersburg Bridge Partners contacted WMOA News following safety concerns raised by community members on a Facebook post featuring video and photos of the rehabilitation project.

"Parkersburg Memorial Bridge has passed all required safety inspections," Duke stated. "It is inspected under Federal Highway Administration Safety standards and has passed all of those inspections both leading up to and during the construction process and will continue to be inspected using those standards. And we have extensively trained engineers and construction employees conducting all of the work on the bridge, as well as all of the inspections. So, I understand that the bridge itself may not look beautiful as people are crossing it right now while it's under construction, but there are absolutely no concerns about the safety or structural integrity of the bridge, at this time."

Matt Lewellyn, a representative for the project, explains the purpose of the additional equipment seen by travelers.

"The cables that you see strung across the bridge are actually an engineered system that goes through a process of design, submittal and review that is put together by the contracting team to temporarily support workers while they're there," Lewellyn said. "So, the panels that are overhead and those cables that you see are to support workers. It's also to contain the blasting shot that is used when they're removing the existing paint from the bridge. And then the tarps that go around that do the same thing, so we don't have any material that goes into the river or excess pollutants that would come out of there as we're working on the bridge."

Sections of existing steel grid decking are being removed and replaced. This will reportedly continue throughout the project until the entire bridge deck is replaced.

During the aforementioned closure, the asphalt was milled and some small sections were removed to reach welds on the existing steel grid deck. The asphalt overlay is intended to improve the driving surface and aesthetics and does not affect the structural integrity of the bridge, according to information obtained from the Parkersburg Bridge Partners.

Questions and comments can be submitted online at parkersburgbridgepartners.com