Babb’s Bridge between Windham and Gorham will remain closed for months as officials assess and repair the damage caused when a truck far exceeding the bridge’s weight limit broke through the deck and plunged into the Presumpscot River on Aug. 23.

Engineers will assess the covered bridge this week, said Maine Department of Transportation spokesperson Paul Merrill. He told the Portland Press Herald that the bridge will likely be repaired in the spring. He said the state will have to determine whether to rebuild the wooden bridge or replace it with a more modern, sturdier structure.

State police say the dump truck loaded with gravel weighed six times as much as the bridge’s posted weight limit.

“The Maine State Police’s Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Unit says the truck had a gross weight of 36,000 pounds and the bridge was posted at 6,000 pounds,” Shannon Moss, the state Department of Public Safety spokesperson, said Tuesday.

Moss said a $2,500 weight violation summons was given to the driver and company. Gorham police had not said as of Tuesday whether other charges are pending.

Deputy Police Chief Michael Nault identified the driver as Joshua Polewarzyk, 37, of Limington, who sustained minor injuries.

The Press Herald has identified the truck’s owner as The Driveway Guys of Biddeford. The company did not return the Press Herald’s phone calls or emails on Friday and Saturday. The company acknowledged receiving an American Journal Facebook message seeking comment Monday, but didn’t follow up with a comment.

The incident occurred on the Gorham side of the river, where a sign indicates the weight limit.

Nault said Polewarzyk was driving a Ford 750 truck loaded with crushed gravel. “The excessive weight of the vehicle caused the wooden floor of the bridge structure to give way,” he said in a press release.

Carl Phillips of Phillips & Sons Body Shop pulled the truck out of the river and believes the bridge can be saved. “They can put the bridge back together again,” he said Tuesday.

Phillips said Tuesday that he hasn’t heard from the company.

The town of Gorham called Phillips to pull the dump truck from the Presumpscot, assisted by B & B Towing of Westbrook. “The truck was upside down in the river,” Phillips said.

He said the drop from the bridge deck to the water was about seven feet.

State authorities didn’t want the bridge to be damaged further, and Phillips said he didn’t want to pull the truck back up through the hole in the bridge deck. So, Phillips first had the truck winched downstream away from the bridge.

He had assistance from game wardens, who had an airboat at the scene and helped take a cable downstream to hook to a tree. A worker from B&B went into the river to hook a cable around the rear end of the truck.

Three hours later, Phillips reeled in the truck. “We had quite a crowd” watching the procedure, Phillips said. “I’ve got the truck and hauled it to my lot.”

The truck’s load is in the river, Phillips said.

The bridge is an exact replica of a covered bridge that was built in the 1800s (dates have been reported as 1840 and 1864), and destroyed by arson in 1973. The replacement opened in 1976 and is accessed by Covered Bridge Road in Windham and Hurricane Road in Gorham.

When the replica bridge was built, Phillips helped saw the timbers. He said Nelson Wagner of Gorham owned a sawmill and it was set up at the Libby Avenue farm of Henry Hamblen, Phillips’ father-in-law. He said the lumber was donated, “The whole town was involved.”

One of those donors was the late Sherman “Red” Gray, a town councilor. According to an American Journal clipping, Gray donated spruce logs from 70-foot-tall trees,  estimated to be 80 years old and harvested at his farm in South Gorham.

Phillips said the bridge was designed for a car or a pickup truck.

The bridge got a $160,000 makeover in 2016, according to an article in The Forecaster, following vandalism in 2014 and damage from a snowplow in 2015. Through the decades it has been a popular place for swimmers to jump into the river.

The incident remains under investigation and witnesses are asked to contact Sgt. Ted Hatch of Gorham police at 222-1660 ext. 1.