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26th Street Bridge Reopens A Year After Collapse

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- You'll remember the video below. It's the one where a wall collapses taking part of 26th Street with it.

Now as Mike Schuh reports, the road has been rebuilt.

Watch the cars, we all know how this is going to end. A viral video for some, a punishing reality for those who lived on 26th Street.

It was like the hand of God.

This home video taken right before the collapse shows nature giving fair warning as large cracks began appearing years earlier.

Something the city knew all about.

"For three years I've called in and the city has come out and 5 or 6times have told me not to worry," one resident said.

Today, trains pass by a rebuilt retaining wall.

A block that takes this long to travel, but 13 months to rebuild.

"Most beautiful street in Baltimore," ad man Bob Leiffler said.

Leiffler owns those buildings off to the left.

He's not sure if he's joining the lawsuit by neighbors against the city asking for compensation for the 13 months of disruption during the heavy construction. -- but he's glad it's behind us.

"They fixed it," Leiffler said. "I mean there's a lot of people belly-aching and you know, but they fixed it. We need some  good news in this town."

Thank you for joining us this morning on this very special day to reopen 26th Street.

A rock solid block 13 million dollars in the making.

The city says the good thing to come out of this is that they've been able to inspect all those retaining walls that line these rail tracks.

"We found areas where we may have identified the very early sages of potential problems and the good news is that we've been able to work with our partners to make sure they're on top of them," a city official said.

All that's left to do is for BGE to finish the wiring, to turn on the new street lights.

CSX has agreed to pay half of the 13 million dollar cost for those repairs.

 

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