Project manager outlines Kansas River bridge project
Rex Fleming, project manager for the Kansas Turnpike Authority, outlines progress on construction of a new Kansas River bridge at the northern edge of Lawrence -- a project that will allow for blasting of the first of two existing river bridges in December. Enlarge video
Old river bridges will be blasted
A construction project that will erect a new Kansas River bridge will also destroy two current bridges. The project is estimated to cost $130 million and will be completed sometime in late December. Enlarge video
Much of the 9 million pounds of steel that’s been supporting hundreds of thousands of vehicles crossing the Kansas River for more than 50 years soon will be coming down.
In a matter of seconds.
Officials behind a $130 million project to replace the Kansas Turnpike’s two river bridges and related upgrades are planning for a deployment of targeted explosive charges at the work site that runs through the northern edge of Lawrence.
And by Christmas, Patrick Carney, the president of Chicago Explosive Services, will press a single button to drop the first of two bridges that stand as high as 50 feet above the river below.
Upon detonation, Carney’s four directional charges — encased in copper tubing, held in place by industrial-sized rubber bands, backed with heavy-duty cloth and surrounded by double-plywood boxes — will focus blasts so strong that they’ll shear load-bearing sections of the bridge’s massive steel trusses.
Just like cutting through a frozen stick of butter with a white-hot knife.
“It shoots the copper jacket through the steel member,” Carney said of the RDX explosives that deliver force faster than traditional TNT. “It literally happens so fast: it shoots through before the rubber band even breaks.”
The strategic placement of charges — following preparatory cuts by Carney’s crew, and removal of all concrete deck and barriers on top by others — will allow the first bridge to fall into the river in three pieces, ready to be dragged out with assistance from heavy-duty cranes.
No Wile E. Coyote here
Anyone who shows up to watch likely will be disappointed, Carney said.
That’s because onlookers will be kept at least 1,000 feet away, he said, and the blast will be expected to occur overnight, in the dark — likely about 2 a.m. some day in December.
“It’s going to be so hard to see this thing,” Carney said.
Besides, once the three sections start their descent, Carney said, they should hit the water in little more than a second. Sound from the blasts won’t even reach spectators until after the steel has started falling.
“It’s not the Wile E. Coyote thing you think of,” Carney said. “It’s just ‘boom!’ and it’s down. That’s it.”
That’s just what Mike Jeffries, vice president for United Contractors Inc., plans to be paying for.
As the project’s subcontractor for both building the new bridges and removing the old ones, Jeffries is counting on Chicago Explosive Services to do its work without a hitch.
With the bridge coming down in sections, workers said, cleanup is easier.
Meanwhile, there’s plenty to coordinate: permits from various agencies; traffic-control plans with turnpike and law-enforcement personnel; and crowd control with on-site security teams, who will be tasked with keeping onlookers out of harm’s way.
“We’ve done several of these around the country, and you always have somebody who knows more than you and tries to get too close,” Jeffries said. “It always seems people want to be daredevils. We don’t want to get anybody hurt.”
That’s why planning is under way now.
‘Smooth’ blasts sought
The first step is to finish construction of the first new bridge. That’s so that all turnpike traffic can be routed onto the new span — two lanes in each direction — by Thanksgiving, giving crews enough time to take off the old bridge’s concrete deck and concrete barriers.
Then it’s up to Carney’s crew to set the charges, arrange for brief “rolling closures” of lanes on the turnpike and, with a press of a button, send the steel into the water.
Next up will be preparing the other old bridge — the one that’s about three feet south of the new one — for blasting a few weeks later, following the same process.
“I don’t think there’ll be all that much to it,” Jeffries said. “Everybody thinks there will be concrete flying, but it’s an anticlimactic deal.”
That’s the plan, anyway.
“It’ll be kind of a letdown once it’s over,” Jeffries said, “as long as everything goes smooth.”
Comments
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jrlii (anonymous) says…
I hope they have done their calculations correctly, 'cause taking out the eastbound bridge first could easily cause the piers to shift, resulting in the westbound span sliding north, off the piers and into the new bridge, 'cause there may be two bridges, but only one set of T-shaped piers supporting both.
Just personally, I'd be happier if they took out the westbound span first, or both at once. 'cause the concrete in at least one of those old piers is badly cracked and seems to be held together with just a few stout pieces of steel.
I figure that cracking is a very large piece of why the Kansas River bridges are being replaced.
Parrysmom (anonymous) says…
Well darn. I think the blasting would be neat to watch.
GardenMomma (anonymous) says…
I wonder why they're doing it at 2 a.m.? Wouldn't that be rather disturbing to the neighbors?
I wonder if Chanel 6 can turn the tower cam towards the bridge and if we could see it via TV?
admireed (anonymous) says…
Blast in Lawrence? Is there a tree or minnow that might be hurt? Stop This!
1029 (anonymous) says…
I hope they're aware that the Douglas County Artic Swim Club sometimes holds midnight swims around that stretch of the Kansas River. The Kansas River swim usually takes place during the Wolf Moon in January, but I remember a few years ago being out there in the third week of December, probably around 2 am or so. Even when the Kansas River swim is in January, some members go out in December to do practice swims, and 2 am is prime time for practice swims because it's right around the time that members are getting kicked out of bars.
Hopefully, Chicago Explosive Services won't harm any DCASC members when this happens. It seems like there are already too many instances of people from Chicago doing harm to people in Kansas--like Obama and that Jaeger guy.
RalphReed (Ralph Reed) says…
Sunflower should film it with both a standard and a night vision camera, then make it available for free.
puddleglum (anonymous) says…
why at night? traffic reasons?
sounds like they don't want anyone around in case something goes wrong...
can't blame them, it is typical chicago-style
whynaut (anonymous) says…
i wonder if the wave produced from dropping 9,000,000 lbs of steel from 50ft above the water will reach the Bowerstock dam. Maybe I'll go sit down below the dam with a net to grab all the unfortunate, recently deceased fishies.
Then throw a big fish fry inviting the DCASC because anyone who voluntarily goes swimming in the Kaw might actuaully eat a fish that used to call it home.
whynaut (anonymous) says…
by the way, does anyone know if you can see the bridge from Burcham Park, and if so, is it more than 1,000 ft. away? Staying up until 2 a.m. in the dead of winter, perhaps with a grill, some "warming fluids", and some lawn chairs, to witness an explosion of this magnitude sounds like just the thing to ring in the holidays.
none2 (anonymous) says…
They really should contact Hollywood. Surely they have needs for a real live bridge collapse in some movie. It might get the state a bit of money to help pay for it.
persevering_gal (anonymous) says…
1029,
I don't know about you, but I don't think I would want to go swimming in the Kansas River in December.
75x55 (anonymous) says…
As long as we don't see something like the I-40 bridge horror...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-40_bri...
Not that this doesn't pass through my head each and every time I go over a bridge with enough arc to it that I cannot see the whole length.....
none2 (anonymous) says…
Seamus (Anonymous) says…
I'm continually amazed to see that we have practically unlimited funds in our society to gold-plate our interstate system, but virtually none to build a decent passenger rail system. Oh well, I guess there will always be enough cheap oil to keep our 200,000,000 cars running forever…
===========================
Gold plated? Don't you think that is a bit of an exaggeration?
We had decent passenger rail service. People CHOSE not to take it anymore, so over time it got dismantled. Now we have Amtrak. Amtrak is a very sorry service, but it is passenger rail for those that think we must have it.
I suppose that if we forced people at gun point to ride Amtrak we could get its usage up. However, do we really want to go that far to control people?
labmonkey (anonymous) says…
We need to get Burt Reynolds and Jan Michael Vincent to jump it in a rocket-powered Pontiac.
joejarvis (Joseph Jarvis) says…
How is it safe to demolish a bridge at 2 a.m.? If the concern is traffic on the adjacent new bridge, why not just close that bridge during the day? This isn't New York, where night construction makes sense. And night or day, people will come out to watch. Doing it at night makes it difficult to help people if they are injured. I would think a night demolition would cost more too. What am I missing?