Officials in Ocean County say they are being forced to make emergency repairs on a bridge in Point Pleasant Beach, which they say was in danger of failing. 

The emergency repairs comes days after a Kane In Your Corner investigation found hundreds of bridges across New Jersey are structurally deficient, and some have been for decades.

Ocean County officials say a routine inspection uncovered that two of the 21 wooden pilings holding up the Richard E. Lane Bridge had become 90 percent compromised. They imposed a 3-ton weight limit on the bridge, traveled by an average of 12,000 people a day, until emergency repairs can be completed.

The Richard E. Lane Bridge was built in 1981. Until the latest inspection, it was not considered to be deficient. 

According to data from the Federal Highway Administration, the last inspection of the bridge, in May 2016, yielded an overall structural evaluation of “fair.” The substructure, the part of the bridge which is now compromised, was also rated “fair.” The superstructure was rated “satisfactory” and the deck or roadway was rated “good.”

Every bridge is also given a sufficiency rating, which the federal government uses to determine eligibility for funding for bridge projects. The Richard E. Lane Bridge had a sufficiency rating of 66.5 percent, below the 80 percent threshold for rehab funding but well above the 50 percent funding for replacement funding.