It’s a scary photo that many of you have been asking about, so we sent our Verify Team out to see for themselves.

HOUSTON — A photo of a badly damaged concrete pillar under the I-10/San Jacinto River bridge has spread like wildfire on social media.

A Facebook post of the photo by Harris County Justice of the Peace Don Coffey had 72,000 shares.

“For everyone I care about, please take TX-225 into Houston not I-10 west until this column is repaired or replaced,” Coffey said in his post. “Stay safe. (I-10 west at San Jacinto river bridge)”

The Baytown group “We So Nosey” also got a big response when they posted the photo on Facebook.

You can only see this angle of the photo from the water, so KHOU 11 Reporter Matt Dougherty took a boat out to see if the photos floating around are the real deal.

We can now verify they are real, and the sight is a little unnerving.

But we checked with TxDOT Thursday and they say the bridge is safe. They say crews placed two steel beams on each side of the column until permanent repairs can be made.