Aaron Hoover, right, and an unidentified man look over the damage to Erb's Covered Bridge on Wednesday.
A tractor-trailer struck and damaged the historic Erb's Covered Bridge on Wednesday morning and the driver left the scene, Ephrata police said.
The 1887 bridge on Erbs Bridge Road spans Hammer Creek between Ephrata and Warwick townships.
Police identified the driver in the 9:36 a.m. accident as Edgar Zunica, 35, of East Petersburg.
A man who lives near the bridge, Aaron R. Hoover, 65, of 74 Erbs Bridge Road, said he saw the tractor-trailer approaching the bridge.
"I thought, 'Oh, no. He's not going to go through the bridge.' Then he did," Hoover said. "It sounded like something exploded."
The driver didn't stop until he got about a quarter-mile down the road, Hoover said. He got out to check his truck then continued on his way, Hoover said.
Hoover reported the accident and told police that the truck likely was headed to a neighbor's steel shop, Ephrata police said.
Police located the truck and its driver and were considering filing charges against Zunica, police said.
Police were overseeing the weighing of the full-size tractor-trailer on Wednesday to determine if it was within the bridge's weight limit, police said. It was loaded with steel at the time of the accident.
Erb's Covered Bridge, also called Hammer 1, is one of the few Lancaster County bridges not built near a mill site, according to "Pennsylvania's Covered Bridges: A Complete Guide," a 1993 book by Benjamin D. Evans and June R. Evans. The bridge was named for the Erb family.
"It is one of the nicest bridges in the county," Hoover said. "I hate to see something like this happen."