IT employees at the Corps of Engineers had to find a work-around to fix a problem with the Government Bridge camera. It took longer than usual because the cause was not ice, lightning, or an angry bird.
For more than three months, Quad Cities commuters relied on their own eyes, and a couple of neon signs, to find out if they'd have to wait to cross the Mississippi River using the Rock Island Viaduct and Government Bridge. And that's just the way it was before the internet.
Allen Marshall is the Chief of Corporate Communications for the Corps of Engineers, Rock Island District. He can't remember exactly when a computer stopped giving the public access to Government Bridge camera images. He says the camera itself was working and accessible government computers.
But for some reason, the public-facing side of the web feed wasn't working. So the IT Department moved it to a different server. That affected thousands of Quad Cities commuters but also about 7,000 people who work on Arsenal Island. Now, Marshall is just happy the camera is accessible to the public again.
Click HERE to access the river camera from its new server.