Sixteen locations on the Hernando de Soto Bridge must be repaired before the bridge reopens, according to the Tennessee Department of Transportation.
That's up from nine areas that the department listed Friday as needing to be repaired.
"Upon further review of the 800+ page inspection report, the consulting engineers have identified a total of 16 plate locations that are critical to repair to open the bridge for traffic," the department said in its Monday update. "Prep work is being done now, with the first shipment of plates planned this week."
Dave Parker, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Transportation, said that's 16 out of about 500 weld connections.
"It's not bad at all," he said. "It's actually pretty good. But we want to get it right. Safety is No. 1. ... It was not a surprise. It was not an 'Oh-my-gosh' kind of thing."
Parker said workers do ultrasonic testing and sometimes drill into the weld to pull out a core sample.
"These are not things that are seen by the naked eye," he said of the need for ultrasonic testing.
If, after inspecting 500 welds, they had said everything looks fine, "I don't think anybody would be happy with that," said Parker.
Built in 1973, the Hernando de Soto Bridge on Interstate 40 spans the Mississippi River between West Memphis and Memphis. The bridge has been closed since May 11, when a crack was found in a steel beam. Traffic is being rerouted to the Memphis and Arkansas Bridge, which is 3 miles to the south on Interstate 55.
While repairing the main fracture in the Hernando de Soto bridge, workers also inspected the bridge for other problem areas.
Parker said the 16 areas needing repair don't include any new cracks.
Transportation officials haven't provided a concrete timeline for reopening the bridge. In June, they estimated that completion of the bridge repairs could take until the end of July or early August.
Parker said he hasn't heard anything about the additional repairs pushing the reopening date further.
The crack on the Hernando de Soto Bridge, a tied-arch span, was found on a steel beam that connected cords to the arch. When the beam cracked, the load that was once carried by the beam shifted to other parts of the bridge.
The way the bridge is designed means the Arkansas Department of Transportation classifies it as "fracture critical," meaning parts of the bridge are "subject to tension whose failure would probably cause a portion of or the entire bridge to collapse." Fracture critical bridges require frequent inspections but aren't inherently unsafe.
The Tennessee Transportation Department oversees repairs of the shared bridge, while the Arkansas department is responsible for bridge inspections. Kiewit Infrastructure Group was contracted for the repairs.
Nichole Lawrence, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Transportation, said officials didn't know as of Monday if the additional work would cause a delay in the reopening.
She said 16 steel plates are being designed for the additional repairs. Lawrence said she didn't know the sizes of those plates.
"This is an overabundance of caution, going the extra mile in light of what's happened, obviously," said Parker. "They'll bolt a plate over those areas to give it extra reinforcement there."
The first phase of the repairs was to shore up the bridge to safely support crews and equipment to make the repairs and inspections.
The Tennessee Department of Transportation said Friday that the contractor was finishing Phase 2 and beginning part of Phase 3, repairing the additional areas of concern found in the inspection.
Work that was planned for last weekend included final bolting and torquing, removal and installation of miscellaneous pieces, priming and painting of Phase 2 work, and installation of access platforms for Phase 3 work.
The crack was discovered May 11, but a photo from 2019, confirmed by transportation officials to be authentic, shows the crack has potentially been there for years. Another photo appears to show a crack as far back as 2016, but the authenticity of that image remains under investigation.
The discovery led the Arkansas Department of Transportation to fire the inspection team leader for missing the crack during at least two previous inspections, which are conducted annually.