CINCINNATI — It’s been almost two weeks since a massive fire damaged a significant part of the Daniel Carter Beard Bridge on the Ohio side and turned a popular playground into ashes.

Thousands of people depended on the "Big Mac" bridge to get to work every day.

In terms of people being able to get up there to really check things out, the Ohio Department of Transportation said they’ve actually had very limited availability and people just haven’t been able to get up there.

What many see happening on the ground is not even repair work yet.

It’s all about security, stability and making sure it’s safe to get up underneath.

Kentucky real estate agents Laura Benson and Michael Cummiskey wanted to get a closer look.

“We would walk all through here under the bridge and never thought this could happen,” Benson said.

This was the first time they’ve been down by the bridge since the fire, but it’s certainly not the first time they’ve felt the impact of the closures.

“If it’s before 1 o’clock in the afternoon, it’s pretty easy, but if it’s after that or if there’s a sports game all the bridges are tied up, and it takes an extra half an hour or 45 minutes of travel time, extra,” said Cummiskey.

Both agents travel between Ohio and Kentucky quite a bit.

They say finding a balance is tricky and many buyers want to check-out homes after work. 

“Depending on when the appointment is, evenings are definitely worse and there’s only like one way to Kentucky and that’s this bridge. We use (Interstate) 75, but that’s also a mess and everybody’s just trying to figure it out and everybody’s being detoured, so I’m sure everybody is dealing with the same headache,” said Benson.

This week contractors have started putting together and installing six large shoring towers to help secure the bridge.  

“It’s day-to-day. but it is very much all-hands-on-deck. A lot of work happening behind the scenes and, obviously, a lot of work right here right now underneath the bridge,” said ODOT District 8 Public Information Officer Kathleen Fuller.

The materials to build the towers came from New Jersey and the bases for the towers had to cure for 72 hours. 

The goal is to have all six up by the end of the week.

While some needed parts are obvious, like a new deck and sign trust, crews need to get onto the bridge first to really check before working on a design.

“A lot of these things that are happening, people are wondering is work taking place. We aren’t able to start construction yet, but we are getting there. Again we are working on that design plan, but we do need to make those final assessments and we also need to make sure this structure is safe and stable because we’ll be having our crews working underneath this bridge and we want to keep everybody safe,” Fuller said.

In the meantime, Cummiskey and Benson will just keep making their own design plan for their daily commutes.  

“We’ll do business earlier in the day and sometimes wait until rush hour is done,” said Cummiskey.

“If we’re in Ohio and during rush hour, we’ll just kind of hang out until traffic dies down so that way we’re not sitting an hour in traffic,” Benson said.

ODOT also said that a lot of people try to compare this fire to the Brent Spence Bridge fire.

They said that’s two different situations.

Shoring towers were not used in those repairs.

In terms of the timeline or cost estimate, ODOT said they don’t have anything just yet. But we do know the day of the fire they did say it could be in the millions.

As of now the Southbound lanes remain closed.

Large fences have been put up around the work underneath the bridge, but parts of Sawyer Point Park are back open including the pedestrian and bike path along the river and the pickleball courts.