THE NEW BRIDGE IN NALOUČANY WILL SURVIVE EVEN A ONE HUNDRED YEAR FLOOD LEVEL

30. 06. 2010

On 30 June, the new bridge over the River Oslava was ceremonially handed over to its investor – the Vysočina Region. The bridge, situated between the municipalities of Naloučany and Ocmanice, was designed to survive even a one hundred year flood level. “In this case, the subsidy from the European Union and state funds at the amount of CZK 24 million that was donated to the Vysočina Region through the South-East ROP played a decisive role. It is also important that, instead of going nine kilometres along the main road, people living in Ocmanice and Naloučany again have only meters to walk if they want to meet one another, ” said the President of the Region, Jiří Běhounek.

The single-span bridge without any central pillar was designed taking into account the bad experiences of the local inhabitants with the massive spring floods. Water management services and road maintenance workers started fighting flood water at Naloučany in 2003.  Then, the road had to be dug up for the first time so that the river bed could be extended to ensure the flood water would not reach about twenty family houses. When the situation repeated itself in the spring of 2006 and the original forty-year old reinforced-concrete bridge was in danger of  being swept away by water, the administrator of the communication – the Vysočina Region Authority – started considering a new upper-bridge construction.  After the floods in 2006, it was decided that the situation could no longer be solved by digging up the road and that a new alternative needed to be found. The original bridge was therefore pulled down and cars were diverted over a provisional, 21-meter long bridge between Ocmanice and Naloučany for about two years. The provisional bridge was built on the site of the former upper-bridge by a group of 22 army engineers from the 151st  Engineering Battalion from Bechyně.

The reinforced-concrete, single-span bridge construction is formed by an integrated frame made of pre-stressed concrete and based on bored piles. “The bridge has been designed to stand up to a one hundred year flood level, with a standardized capacity reserve,” stated Jiří Lojda from the Regional Department of Transportation and Road Management when he was describing the work. The contract also included the relocation of the telecommunication cable and street lighting, adjusting of the watercourse under the bridge (removal of the central pillar of the original bridge), adjusting and stabilizing of the river banks, landscaping and compensation planting. Concurrently with this project, the municipalities of Naloučany and Ocmanice completed the pavement construction from the bridge to their respective municipalities. The bridge over the River Oslava  makes up only one part of the anti-flood measures designed in the study drawn up for the Naloučany Municipal Authority.

The construction of the new bridge commenced in July 2009 and was completed on 30 June 2010. The bridge was put into operation on 1 June 2010 in accordance with the permit for premature structure utilization.  The investor of the work, the total costs of which reached CZK 26.5 million, is the Vysočina Region. The contribution from the EU funds and state budget through the South-East ROP exceeded CZK 24 million. The bridge was constructed by the Roads and Bridges Sub-department of the Transport Construction Branch of OHL ŽS, a.s. according to the project designed by IM-PROJEKT, Inženýrské a mostní konstrukce, s.r.o.