Another wooden bridge set ablaze: County hikes reward to $1,000 |
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Another wooden bridge set ablaze: County hikes reward to $1,000
Flames erupted from the 65-foot bridge on Curtis Davis Road early Monday morning, the latest in a string of arson attacks on White County's wooden bridges. "I'm upping the ante," said County Judge Bob Parish. "The reward is now up to $1,000." The money will go to anyone providing information leading to the arrest and conviction of the culprit. Informants can remain anonymous, said Parish. The flaming bridge was spotted by a motorist at about 2:30 Monday morning, and the Russell Volunteer Fire Department responded in time to save the structure. Still, county workers had to remove about an eight-foot section of the bridge floor, as well as the running boards on the west end of the bridge. At 4 p.m. Monday, the torched boards were still smoldering. Another 30-foot section of the bridge remained soaked with diesel fuel. "All it will take is a match, and the rest of the bridge is going up," said K.W. Billings, road foreman at the White County Road Department. "I'm worried they'll come back tonight and finish the job." Parish estimated the damage at $700, but said more was at stake. "It's not the money - it's the life. Suppose someone had been coming down this road in the middle of the night." Curtis Davis Road is to the north of Bald Knob, and travels through farm land between Hwy. 36 and Rio Vista Road. The bridge crosses Little Mingo Creek. Two years ago, an arsonist destroyed a bridge about on Pumping Station Road, which also crosses Little Mingo Creek. Six months after that, an arsonist attacked the same Curtis Davis Road bridge that was torched Monday. "That time, they used a gallon of Coleman fuel, and we found the container over there," said Parish, pointing to a washed out section of the bank. "So this time we looked there, and we found two gallon containers that held diesel. That's me being a detective - I think it's the same guy." Det. Fred Cheek of the Sheriff's Department arrived as Parish was discussing the containers, and dusted them for fingerprints. The investigation is on-going. Asked why someone would burn down the bridge, Parish shrugged. "If they think they're going to get a new bridge, they're wrong," he said. "We could put a tanker car [sluice] in at the Pumping Station Road bridge, but this one's too long for that. We'd have to put in a new concrete bridge here. That'd cost probably $300,000. We just couldn't afford it. People would have to go around, take Rio Vista out to Hwy. 64." |
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County
Judge Bob Parish surveys damage to the 65-foot bridge that carries Curtis
Davis Road over Little Mingo Creek, the latest in a string of arson attacks
against county bridges. The middle section of the bridge was soaked with
diesel fuel, leaving a dark stain across the bridge, but firefighters
arrived before flames took the entire structure. Damage is estimated at
$700. (Tim Bousquet/The Daily Citizen)