The City of Prestonsburg announced Wednesday afternoon that the bridge off of KY-114, which takes drivers from US-23 to West Prestonsburg near Archer Park, is closed until further notice.

The bridge is on KY-2555. Drivers can detour using University Drive from US-23 and US-460 or by using KY-302 to South Lake Drive.

Mayor Les Stapleton said he had to come out to believe it himself. After seeing the damage, he had the bridge engineer come and look at it. They decided to close the bridge.

Thursday they plan to start construction. Engineers will make sure there is no structural damage and it is just the concrete on top that needs to be replaced.

“It will impact about 400 people. Luckily they have another way out. It’s a lot longer and of course, we’ve had to let all EMS know and fire departments and we had to notify anybody that needs to get over in there that there’s gonna be an extra three four-minute ride to get in there,” said Stapleton.

Stapleton said he has not seen anything like this before. It is not known what caused the damage.