Marble Falls Bridge to be Demolished with Explosives

The Texas Department of Transportation has received approval to use explosives to demolish the 80-year-old U.S. 281 bridge over Lake Marble Falls in March. Workers have already begun to take down streetlights, guardrails and parts of the bridge structure.

Kelli Reyna with TxDOT says that using explosives will speed up the process.

"It really does help save a great deal of time rather than doing the piece-by-piece demolition," says Reyna. "We are really excited. because the sooner we can take the bridge structure down, the sooner we can build a new, safer bridge.

The demolition will take place sometime between March 17 and 23. A new bridge for northbound traffic has already been constructed, another bridge for southbound traffic should be complete in late 2014.