So you think the bridge over Blind Pass will go byebye?
Yes, that bridge will go, but...but...but...
Barrier island bridge builders know their business. They use modular construction, deep, cylindrical piers (low wave impedance) and “light” weight span sections, easily repaired... once heavy lift equipment can access the site. Barge or low boy trailer, they can handle either.
The downside will be the approaches to the bridge. Much lower in elevation than the crest of the span, and with only so much money available in the budget, you have to draw the line somewhere, so at some point the foundation under the pavement changes from “bridge quality” piers or mats, to standard compacted gravel. That ends up on lawns over in Punta Gorda.
You can easily end up with a pretty bridge, including abutments, dissociated, by itself, an island, 50 or 100 feet away from either end of the road. Now you have to get dredges on barges, or dozers on lowboys in to haul up muck from the new pass, then dry it enough to get gravel dumps and compacting equipment over the top before you can resurface the bridge approaches.
You have to zoom out to assess the lead time to do this. Did the causeway to Ft Myers survive? Or does everything have to come over on barges? Including food and water, coffee, hydraulic fluid, and duct tape?
How close does the remaining part of Periwinkle Way get to the site? Howe much of it has to be rebuilt to get those lowboys and heavies in?