(KAIR)--The Atchison County Commission is moving forward with their plans to have multiple bridges in the county inspected. The commission received bids from three engineering firms during their meeting Tuesday afternoon, and Commission Chair Jeff Schuele says that only fracture critical bridges, which are bridges with one section that can potentially damage the entire bridge, need to be inspected. Structure critical bridges are being inspected by the Kansas Department of Transportation this year, so the county does not have to worry about those.

Schuele says the planned inspections can be simple, but very thorough. It's primarily a visual inspection, if the inspectors see something wrong, they investigate it further. Several pictures are taken, and the overall integrity of the bridge is assessed.

There are also some bridges that do not require an inspection at this time, but the commission has discussed having them looked at anyway. These bridges are under twenty feet in length, and do not require inspection at this time, but since the other bridges are being looked at, it was decided to see if they could be included as well.

The Commission has decided to accept bids in a per bridge format, meaning firms would bid on how much they would charge for each bridge inspected. Cook, Flatt, and Strobel submitted a bid for $82 a bridge, BG Consultants bid $98 per bridge, and Schwab-Eaton's bid was $78 per bridge.

The Commission is reviewing all three bids and plans to make a decision during next week's meeting.