A dilapidated old bridge between Garrard and Mercer counties will close for months starting next week.

The state transportation cabinet laid out its repair plans during a public meeting in Burgin Tuesday night.

Kennedy Mill Bridge was built in the 1920's. It will be closed to accommodate those badly needed repairs on Monday, October 12, and some say that's none too soon.

Pictures of the deteriorating bridge provided by the transportation cabinet outraged many of the 100 or so people attending the meeting.

David Hughes, an engineer for the transportation cabinet, attended that gathering designed to answer the concerns of drivers who use the bridge. He told 27 NEWSFIRST, "The public reaction was not very good. They could see there are all kinds of indications that the bridge is in real bad shape."

Hughes stood up at the meeting and said that he, personally, would not drive across this bridge. But if it's that dangerous, why not just shut it down immediately? Hughes said, "We need to warn people what's coming and give them time to make other arrangements. I don't see any more risk in doing that than we've had in the last 2 or 3 years."

The recommended detour around the bridge will require some people to drive 40 miles out of their way. John Webb, who works for a boat business just on the Mercer County side of the bridge, says, "The frustration for me is working 100 yards across the bridge and being able to get boats and people in here easily. And there are people who live close by here who work in Lexington and will now have to drive way out of their way."

And there are no guarantees that repairing a bridge this old will make it significantly safer over the long term. Engineer Hughes says, "It won't be a complete repair. We hope we will be able to raise the 3 ton limit after the repair is done, but it's possible we might no be able to."

A 1.8 million dollar bridge repair contract has been let with a Lexington firm, Intech, which hopes to complete the work by April of next year.

Another informational meeting is scheduled for Thursday night at six o'clock at Camp Dick Robinson Elementary School in Garrard County.