East Liverpool, along with several other fire departments from Ohio, responded via mutual aid for a fire at an Ergon recycling processing area May 30, 2021 in Newell. At that point, the Jennings Randolph Bridge traffic still was open. (File photo)

CHESTER — The Jennings Randolph Bridge closure has had a far reaching impact on the entire tri-state area — especially if you talk to safety officials.

Not all the 10,000 vehicles from the Jennings Randolph Bridge have made their way down the road — basically due to the 10-ton weight limit to use the toll bridge. However, a minimum of 7,500 vehicles daily use the Wayne Six Toll (Newell) Bridge, according to the bridge owners.

Among those vehicles are not traditional-sized fire pumpers and ladder trucks, tractor trailers, or box trucks in excess of 16 feet long.

So, if a West Virginia-based fire department is in need of a fire truck responding from across the river, what do you do?

Tim Steele, fire chief for the Newell Volunteer Fire Department and president of the United Hancock County Firefighter Association, said that shortly after the West Virginia Division of Highways closed the Jennings Randolph Bridge in mid-December, he reached out to the county’s mutual aid fire department partners in Beaver County to inform them that they now would be the primary agencies due to the closure.

Many of the larger fire apparatus, especially in regards to pumpers and ladder trucks, exceed the weight limit and would not be able to cross the toll bridge from Ohio to West Virginia. For example, Steele explained that some pumpers can easily weigh in excess of 14 tons.

Typical desirable emergency response times are usually four minutes or less.

So, in the case of those larger emergency response vehicles, they would be detoured down to cross on the Shippingport bridge, which Steele explained would significantly modify the response time to between 25 and 40 minutes instead.

Some of the smaller emergency vehicles still would be able to make the trek across the toll bridge as they meet the weight limit; however, often they may possess other disqualifying characteristics, like height or width, from doing so.

For example, the toll bridge is not compatible with legal vehicles that exceed a maximum width of 102 inches wide, according to Frank Six of the Newell Bridge and Railway Company, which owns the toll bridge that spans the Ohio River between Ohio and West Virginia.

Some ambulance companies still tend to play it safe, though.

For example, Dezso Polger explained that the Hancock County Ambulance Company, which he oversees for the Hancock County EMS, has been keeping van-style ambulances in its Chester-based location just in case they have to transport patients across the bridge to East Liverpool City Hospital since they are narrower than a standard box-style ambulance.

This did come into play on Christmas Day, when Hancock County Ambulance did have to transport a stabbing victim from Chester across the toll bridge due to the severity of the man’s injuries and delays with an air ambulance.

As Chester Police Chief Chuck Stanley explained, the victim was stabilized enough to be flown out to UPMC-Presbyterian in Pittsburgh, where he then underwent immediate surgery.

Six said typically that emergency vehicles with lights “are waved through without (paying) a toll.”

“When there is traffic backed up in front of them, we wave the traffic through, so (the emergency vehicles) can get where they need to be for the emergency,” he added.

That posted 10-ton weight limit is per vehicle, so there apparently still is a little wiggle room in the case of an emergency.

Chester Fire Chief John Hissam explained that in the case of a major incident that requires his department to respond to Ohio for mutual aid, the primary path of travel is the Jennings Randolph Bridge. However, if like the last month, that bridge is unavailable to them, his crews do have another option of extending their response time almost 40 minutes by going back and forth to Shippingport only to end up a couple miles away.

In the case, for example, that Chester is needed for mutual aid in Ohio, the department does have a smaller footprint 11-ton pumper that could make its way across the toll bridge if it was the sole vehicle on there.

“They would have to shut the toll bridge to other traffic to get us across, but it could happen,” Hissam explained.

It definitely would be an anomaly, as Chester and Newell fire departments have only had to respond to Ohio twice in the past two years and the Jennings Randolph Bridge wasn’t closed.

Ohio agencies, on the other hand, have responded to West Virginia four times in the past two years.

Six did confirm that this would be true as the toll bridge was designed to withstand 100 tons of weight initially, or two 50-ton trolley cars.

“If there is something we can do to help the public, we try. We would accommodate any request like that to help with an emergency situation. The bridge could easily handle that type of vehicle without other traffic on it,” Six said.

Built in 1905, the privately-owned toll bridge was built to connect the pottery capital of East Liverpool to Newell, which was the future location of a up-and-coming pottery called Homer Laughlin China Company that would be created on a purchased Newell farm. The town eventually included the factory, worker housing, infrastructure, Laurel Hollow Park and supporting businesses.

The toll bridge eventually become a subsidiary to Homer Laughlin China Company, which eventually became the Fiesta Tableware LLC before being sold to the Six family in 2022.