Slough Bridge in Peru lowers weight limit, may open soon

After nearly three months of waiting for an inspection from the Illinois Department of Transportation, Peru’s Slough Bridge may soon be reopened for public use.

The bridge was closed April 27 after a Peru engineer’s inspection revealed significant areas of corrosion and paint loss on the local bridge.

Fire Chief Jeff King provided an update at Monday’s Peru council meeting on the status of the bridge.

“We got the signs up for the bridge,” King said. “The flood just came out of there so now we have to go down there and scrape it and let all of the mud out of there and basically clean everything up.”

King said he is hopeful the bridge will be ready to be opened by the end of the week but it will all depend on the conditions following the flood and weather.

Peru Director of Engineering and Zoning Eric Carls mentioned the state was able to conduct its inspection and concluded a decrease in the maximum allowed weight to cross the bridge was required moving forward.

The updated weight limits for the Slough Bridge will be 26 tons for single vehicles and 35 tons for combination vehicles.

“Everything is posted now, properly,” Carls said. “We submitted pictures to IDOT to show them that the posting was made properly so now we are able to reopen the bridge.”