Is the Lake Ponchatrain Causeway destroyed??

[KGS]

Last night CNN showed some ominous home video footage from a pair of British tourists who survived Katrina. It started with them driving across the Lake Ponchatrain Causeway, the world’s longest bridge, and I was shocked to hear the voiceover: "Here they are before the hurricane struck, standing on highways that no longer exist!"

I’m shocked…is the Causeway really gone?? I couldn’t find any information one way or the other on the news or on Google, and while I’ve seen highway damage on TV it looked to me like regular bayou bridges, not the 26-mile Modern Marvel.

[Fear_Itself]

It was damaged, but it has already been repaired. However, it is not open yet:

Engineers also discovered damage to the section on the Causeway where motorists exit the bridge in Metairie. Robert Lambert, general manager of the Greater New Orleans Expressway Commission, said the damage on the Mandeville side was about three times as bad as it was on the Metairie side.

“The very next day we had engineers with the Department of Transportation in Louisiana, the U.S. federal highway engineers and FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) inspect it,” Lambert said. “They did boat and surface inspections.”

He said for the most part the bridge was in “excellent condition” when engineers inspected it. The storm didn’t damage the northbound bridge, Lambert said.

[Squink]

Of all places, Wikipedia:

During the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005, videos collected showed the structure of the Causeway to be severely damaged along much of its span, however the structure was still intact. The causeway should not be confused with the Pontchartrain Expressway, a section of Interstate 10 and U.S. Highway 90 in downtown New Orleans. Much of I-10 in this area was completely destroyed by the hurricane and its flooding. According to the Times-Picayune, however, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway (which carries no interstate or Louisiana route designation) has been largely spared

Louisiana causeway ‘in better shape than it was in before the hurricane’

Repairs to Hurricane Katrina’s damage on the “World’s Longest Bridge” were completed Tuesday, but the 24-mile bridge won’t be open to the public anytime soon, Causeway officials said Monday.

[bordelond]

… the Pontchartrain Expressway, a section of Interstate 10 and U.S. Highway 90 in downtown New Orleans. Much of I-10 in this area was completely destroyed by the hurricane and its flooding.

This doesn’t strike me as correct. What are known locally as the Twin Spans – the north-and-southbound sections of Interstate 10 between New Orleans and Slidell, LA – were damaged significantly (whole sections broken off).

[whiterabbit]

I never heard of any “Pontchartrain Expressway” and I lived on the Westbank for two years. I-10 across the lake (the “Twin Span”) was badly damaged; it looked like whole chunks of the roadbed had just flipped off the pillars or something.

The Causeway is a completely different road. I’m glad it’s all right, seeing how few roads there are into New Orleans normally, let alone right now.