I-10 Twin Span Bridge

I-10 Twin Span Bridge
The high-rise portion under construction near the North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain, February 2009, with the old eastbound span also visible
Carries	6 lanes of I-10
Crosses	Lake Pontchartrain
Locale	New Orleans and Slidell, Louisiana, U.S.A.
Official name	Frank Davis "Naturally N'Awlins" Memorial Bridge
Maintained by	LA DOTD
Characteristics
Total length	5.4 miles (8.7 km)
Width	60 feet (18 m) each span
Clearance above	30 feet (9.1 m) and 80-foot (24 m) at the bascule bridge section
History
Opened	July 9, 2009 (eastbound) April 7, 2010 (westbound) September 9, 2011 (completed)
Statistics
Daily traffic	55,000

The I-10 Twin Span Bridge, a nearly 6 mile causeway officially known as the Frank Davis "Naturally N'Awlins" Memorial Bridge, consists of two parallel trestle bridges. These parallel bridges cross the eastern end of Lake Pontchartrain in southern Louisiana from New Orleans to Slidell. The current bridge spans were constructed in the second half of the 2000s after the original bridges were extensively damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The first span opened to eastbound traffic on July 9, 2009. On April 7, 2010, the second span was opened to traffic and the old twin spans were permanently closed to traffic.

The approaches to the westbound lanes were completed with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on September 8, 2011, and the opening of all six lanes the next morning. The original Twin Span bridges were demolished shortly after the replacement spans opened. A short portion remains in use as a public fishing pier in Slidell. The debris from the demolition was used to line the nearby lake bottom as an underwater reef.

On August 1, 2014, the bridge was officially named the Frank Davis "Naturally N'Awlins" Memorial Bridge to honor the former WWL-TV News personality Frank Joseph Davis (1942-2013) who often fished near the bridge.

The original bridges were opened at a short ceremony on December 21, 1965 and were each constructed with 433 65-foot concrete segments. Each span was two lanes wide, and they had a clearance of 8.5 feet (2.6 m) for most of the bridge, with a 65 feet (20 m) clearance at the bascule bridge section.

After Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005, the old Twin Spans suffered extensive damage, as the rising storm surge had pulled or shifted bridge segments off their piers. The eastbound span was missing 38 segments with another 170 misaligned, while the westbound span was missing 26 segments with 265 misaligned. The damage to the Twin Spans and to U.S. Route 90 to the east left only one route into New Orleans from the east, the U.S. Route 11 bridge just west of the Twin Spans. The Louisiana Department of Transportation & Development (DOTD) accepted a bid of $30.9 million from Boh Brothers Construction Company on September 9, 2005 to reconstruct the bridges, starting with the less damaged westbound span. Phase 1 of the project was to reestablish two-way traffic on the eastbound span within 45 days.