"Not as close as all that," Dantz said as Thadd went back to maneuvering the support beam they were working on into place. "The biggest danger was a lot of the slats were getting rotted. The support structure wasn't to terrible. It would've held awhile yet. We're just replacing the whole thing as a precaution; may as well make all the wood the same age."
Nack carried an armload of the aforementioned rotted slats back onto dry land on the side of the pond the house sat on, dumping them unceremoniously on the ground. "Best I can figure is that the wood that was used for the planks was older than the rest of the bridge," he said. "It looks like it's seen more weather than the rest does."