No wrecks or injuries were reported when 170 feet of aluminum fencing and canopy supports for a pedestrian walkway on the bridge crumbled above the main Downtown Connector shortly before midnight Saturday, said Karlene Barron, communications director of the Georgia Department of Transportation.
"We're extremely thankful nobody got hurt," Barron told The Associated Press.
She said inspectors determined early Sunday that the 17th Street Bridge remained structurally sound but it appeared a secondary structure of aluminum fencing and walkway canopy supports atop the bridge had given way in one area.
"It caused a sort of zipper effect because of the weight. One part failed and it just kind of ripped everything down," she said, citing the initial inspection.
Motorists traveling the busy Downtown Connector, where Interstates 75 and 85 merge through downtown Atlanta, were subject to periodic lane closures Sunday.
About half the fencing and railing came crashing down before the fence wrapped itself around a light pole and stopped, said DOT spokesman Mark McKinnon. Crews planned to work through the night in hopes of removing the remaining half before rush hour Monday.
If they weren't done, McKinnon said, work would pause for several hours during the peak commute.
McKinnon estimated 10 or more steel beams weighing 500 to 1,000 pounds each fell onto the northbound lanes Saturday. Investigators were still trying to determine Sunday why the railing collapsed, but found at least two bolts that held up the railing had failed, McKinnon said.
"There are some bolts at the very end of the bridge where it started to come down that are sheared off," he said. "What we don't know is if that was the cause or the results."
Traffic backed up for miles, but police then re-routed motorists on other highways in and around Atlanta. The snarled corridor is one of the most heavily traveled in the area, snaking through the center of Atlanta. Traffic was again flowing in both directions after sunrise.
Motorist Reggie Lee told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he saw something falling from the bridge as he was driving on the Downtown Connector and knew he had to stop carefully. But he said he didn't want to cause a pileup and tried to ease up gently because of traffic.
"I knew I had to brake slowly, try to give people behind me time to stop," Lee said. "No one hit anybody."
Lee said the debris landed about 10 feet from his car and missed falling on any of the other vehicles in the area.
Early Sunday, crews brought in dump trucks, cranes and flatbed trucks to remove the debris.
An Associated Press reporter at the scene before dawn Sunday said the immediate area around the bridge had emptied of all but police cars and other emergency vehicles - like one vast, empty parking lot.
The bridge opened in March 2004 and links Atlanta's Midtown with a bustling live-in community of shops, trendy restaurants and homes just across the Downtown Connector on the other side. Some of the debris was seen on a ramp.
Police cars with lights flashing had blocked all ramps nearby. Carloads of young people gawked as they slowly drove past on neighboring streets early Sunday.
Part of the 17th Street bridge that spans Atlanta's downtown connector collapsed onto the northbound lanes of Interstate 85 before midnight Saturday, causing huge traffic delays in the midtown area. The crumbled metalwork can be seen in the lower cen
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