ABBEVILLE, La. (KLFY) – A Vermilion Parish Bridge is closed indefinitely causing some minor traffic headaches in the area.

The bridge is located on South John Hardy Drive.

“The owner of our company, David, actually walked out and asked what was going on, and they said that the bridge was going to be closed,” said Tracy Mire, Officer Manager at F & R Air Conditioning.

“We had performed our audit inspections, we did one recently and we found some critical items on the bridge that made the bridge subject to failure,” said Bill Oliver with DOTD.

The bridge did not meet weight payload standards according to the Department of Transportation and Development, so it will be closed until repairs are made.

“And so we had a requirement that when we find something like that, a safety issue, we immediately have to require the local government to close the bridge,” said Oliver.

F & R Air Conditioning is located right near the bridge, but they aren’t too concerned about the repairs affecting their business.

“We’ve already received a delivery this morning, so without any calls or notifications asking about how they would get through, so apparently officials have already contacted the larger truck drivers and told them the alternate route,” said Mire.

The city of Abbeville will be responsible for the cost of upgrading and repairing the bridge.

“They’ll have to get an engineer to go out and evaluate the bridge and then see what repairs will need to be done, what they need to do, and then they’ll have to report back to us what their going to do to get the bridge back in service,” said Oliver.

The severity of what the bridge inspectors found is unclear, but the DOTD says that safety is their number one concern.

“This is a case where we had to do that for the public safety,” said Oliver.

There is no timetable as to when the repairs will be complete.