A steel height restriction bar is doing its job, a Carbon County official reported.

On Thursday, Commissioner Thomas J. Gerhard said that he received a call from Brent Green, chairman of the Lower Towamensing Supervisors, this week, telling him that the "headache bars" at the covered bridge, which had been the victim of a number of vehicles striking and damaging the structure, show evidence that multiple oversized vehicles have struck the beams."There is paint on the bars," Gerhard said, noting that crews actually found a hatch from a bus that was torn off laying in the lane on the bridge."I just want to remind everybody that when the county closed the bridge there were major concerns from people using that bridge and businesses in that area," he said, adding that through a joint effort with the state, Lower Towamensing and Carbon County, over $319,000 was sunk into saving the bridge through renovations.But even after the bridge was reopened to traffic in November 2014, motorists failed to follow the signage with the height restrictions.As a result, the vertical height restriction bars or steel I-beams were installed in late 2015 to deter oversized vehicles from attempting to cross the bridge."We are asking people to be respectful of the signs," Gerhard said. "Respect our bridge. It is extremely important you know the height of the vehicle you are driving. It is a concern (that people continue to try and drive over the bridge when their vehicle exceeds the height limit) but the headache bar seems to be working."In other matters, the commissioners awarded the Community Development Block Grant for the East Side Borough project, which calls for constructing a swale on Washington Street in the borough, to the low bidder, Hazleton Site Contractors, who bid $41,097.Commissioner William O'Gurek said the bid came in approximately $10,000 higher than what was budgeted in the CDBG money and that the county was able to use money that had been left over from a 2012 project in Weissport instead of going back to East Side Borough.