Thirteen bridge segments that fell from the elevated roadway are being reused. The bridge segments fell when Pier 97 sank 11 feet.

``They did not sustain any damage because they were on the bridge truss and were not connected,'' said Beth Leytham, spokeswoman for the Tampa-Hillsborough County Expressway Authority.

The 13 segments were removed and hauled back to the project casting yard at the Port of Tampa.

Casting yard superintendent Pete Stolmeier said the segments had only cosmetic damage and were patched.

About six miles of the 9-mile road project are elevated in the expressway median.

Each span of the elevated road between support piers contains 16 segments, which weigh 70 tons each. Once loaded on the truss by a crane, the segments are glued together and held aloft by interior steel tendons.

Florida Department of Transportation Secretary Jose Abreu said the segments were tested for reuse.

``That's pretty standard practice,'' he said.

The segments are numbered by support pier and in the order they fit on the bridge: 97-1, 97-2 and so on. The segments for Pier 97 were cast in February 2004, two months before the accident, according to what Stolmeier called the spray-painted ``born on date.''

Leytham said 32 segments over piers 96 and 95 were destroyed and recast.

Each 60-foot-wide segment adds 9 feet of length to the road. More than 3,000 segments were cast for the three elevated portions of the reversible road at a cost of $10,000 each.

Construction of the bridge segments is expected to be completed by early next year. The reversible road between Tampa and Brandon is to open by July 2006 and will require motorists to have a SunPass electronic toll system.