Traces of Soulik: Wrecked Bridge

My man Steve F and I rode out east of Jhuolan over to Shuangchi village. The view east from the Baibufan Bridge was even lovelier than usual, because typhoon Soulik had knocked down the wires that usually chop the scene in half. And not just the wires....

....Soulik's fury had sent streams of water cascading down the hill behind Steve's left shoulder. It had undermined the bridge and sent that retaining wall floating out into the river.

Another view of the damage.

In this photo, if you look carefully at the expansion joint, you can see that the end of the bridge shifted to the east roughly an inch or so. This kind of thing is so routine, yet so expensive, a reminder of how difficult it is to keep infrastructure up in this land of steep, frangible hillsides and torrential rain.
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