There's one thing you can count on every year in Forest County. Tionesta Creek is going to flood and the Nebraska Bridge is going to be partially or totally submerged.

I’m standing as close as I can get to the Nebraska Bridge after the most recent warm spell. The bridge is surrounded by water because Tionesta Creek cannot hold the snowmelt created by a couple days of temperatures near 60 degrees. The water has reached about nine feet above the deck of the 92-year-old steel truss bridge. It continues to rise. This is nothing new. This happens every year.

Ken Sanoski is joining me at the bridge. He is the District 1-0 Bridge Engineer for PennDOT.  He's impressed with the toughness of the Nebraska Bridge.

"There's a lot of steel,” he says. “It's a real beefy structure. Truss bridges are. That was the way they were built back in the day. They were pieced together with heavy steel members. Pretty resilient."

I’ve seen pictures of the Nebraska Bridge on a normal summer day when the creek level is low. I’ve also seen pictures of when the water has risen to the point where the entire bridge is almost underwater. It's not unusual for the entire bridge to disappear. The bridge became a target for flooding in 1940 after the construction of the Tionesta Dam. The dam holds back water that would flood the Town of Tionesta, but the water backup takes it toll on the Nebraska Bridge.

"As far as I know, this is the only bridge in the state that floods due to a dam,” says Ken. “It can be pretty much underwater in the winter months. I don't know of any other ones."

The bridge has a fan club of sorts. It's a Facebook page called "Is Nebraska Bridge Open?" People from across the country and all over the world check in to see if the beloved bridge is once again flooded. The site has almost 10,000 members.

This bridge is flooded so many times that the “Road Closed” sign is on a permanent gate that PennDOT swings open when the water gets too high. Yes, this is a unique old bridge.

"It's pretty crazy,” says Ken. “It is kind of an historical piece for the community."

Ken says a concrete deck was put on the bridge in 1999 and some painting was done in 2011. No other maintenance is expected for the next 10 to 15 years. Yes, this is a tough old bridge.

Ken says high water would take a bigger toll on the bridge if the water came in rapid currents. He says since the high water at the Nebraska Bridge is caused by ponding from the Tionesta Dam, it does not put as much stress on the bridge.