Portions of Sandy River Road are closed. What caused the scour?

Published 2:52 pm Thursday, July 31, 2025

Portions of Sandy River Road (Route 612) are being shut down for the next month, as bridge repairs take place. But what caused the emergency announcement, sent without warning on Wednesday, July 30? Officials with the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) say you can blame this summer’s floods. 

VDOT has closed Sandy River Road from the intersection with Route 613 (Miller Lake Road) to Route 611 (Quail Crossing Road). That was due to bridge structural damage found on the bridge over Sandy River. 

“During our routine bridge safety inspection on July 30, we identified significant scour at Pier 2,” said Len Stevens. He works as communications manager for VDOT’s Lynchburg District, of which Prince Edward is part. 

Scour is the engineering term for soil erosion surrounding a bridge foundation. A bridge foundation has piers and abutments. Bridge scour happens when fast-moving water around a bridge removes sediment from around the bridge foundation. It leaves behind what are called scour holes. Those holes, Stevens said, can compromise the bridge’s integrity. 

“(The scour) has undermined the timber pile foundation, exposing eight of the eighteen piles (or 44%) in the substructure,” Stevens said. “The scour has undermined the foundation three feet below the bottom of the footing on the upstream side of the pier, as well as along the length of the pier footing.”

That’s what caused VDOT officials to shut down the bridge and close the road, while they assessed the condition and figured out the best way to fix it. A temporary detour was set up on Wednesday and Stevens said a more permanent detour is being put in over the next few days, while VDOT continues to develop repair options.  

A look at the current detour in place for Sandy River Road.

Sandy River Road timelines

Stevens said VDOT has a consultant at the site this week and they are assessing both the condition of the bridge and its support structure, to come up with repair options. Currently, the plan is to perform a scour repair at Pier 2, replacing the lost soil to fix the foundation. Now originally, there was discussion about reopening on Aug. 31, but that’s not set in stone. There is no timeline for a repair plan to be chosen and for work to start. 

“We will advise once we have an expected date for reopening,” Stevens said. 

Meanwhile, the permanent detour, which will stay in place until the work is complete, takes people from Route 641 to Route 621, then to Route 629, to Route 613 and finally back to Route 612.