No activity

As of 7am there was no activity on the site.
A steady but light rain has fallen since midnight, measuring .17 of an inch by 7am.

I would still hope they could get the bridge sections delivered in the rain so that they would be standing by, ready to go in after thanksgiving.

Update: They did not deliver the bridge sections today.

Workers on site.

As of 7:10am there were workers on site.
Some large drain pipes had been delivered Friday. Perhaps they are working with those.
No sign of the bridge sections.

 

 

As of 12:15 - pipe sections have been laid in the creek bed, I guess they will be used to divert water when the bridge work finally begins again. The water pump was back in place and was running though it wasn't clear what was being drained.  Still no bridge sections.

Update: According to a rain gage located about a mile from the project - a light drizzle started in the 3pm hour and kept up for the remainder of the day, amounting to just .10 of an inch by midnight.

Some activity

AS of 6:50 am there were workers on site. They were moving the excavator to another location.
Making room for the arrival of the bridge pieces? We hope so.

UPDATE - as of the end of the day,  none of the bridge pieces had been delivered.

Nothing this morning

As of 10:45 am there were no workers on site and no sign of the bridge segments that have caused a work stoppage for 6 weeks now.

Movement this morning.

No sign of the bridge pieces we are waiting on but an excavator was returned to the site this morning at 7am.

No work. Nothing delivered.

Still no sign of the pre-made pieces that have caused the month and a half work stoppage.

No work. No deliveries.

No sign of the pre-made sections that are holding up construction.

Info from the County

County Commissioner Phil Vandiver finally had a meeting with the County Engineer and the bridge contractors so he could answer his constituent's questions.
His report (found on his Facebook page) confirms that the bridge sections are FINALLY being fabricated and delivery should start at the end of next week.
This of course gets us in conflict with Thanksgiving week so we shouldn't expect to much in the way of progress until AFTER Thanksgiving.

In order to start setting the piers we will need a full week without significant rainfall.
When they start setting the bridge sections the water from the creek will have to be diverted around the bridge so the piers can be dry and the grout that holds the bridge in place can cure for a full week.
According to Mr. Vandiver,
 "The plan as of yesterday was to start pumping water around the bridge on a Monday and start setting bridge sections the next day after the piers are dry. It will take 3 days to set all of the sections and another day or two for the grout to dry before they can quit pumping water around the bridge."
 "Once the bridge is set it will take a week for everything to cure and reach proper strength. When all strengths are at the levels needed they can start filling with dirt back to the bridge sections. Once the dirt is in we will have to build the road back with gravel base, asphalt base and the wear surface to ride on. Also there have to be guard rails installed and striping of the roadway so we all know which lane to drive in."

He also reminded us that if the progress gets delayed more then we will run into Christmas and New Years which will delay us even more.

So ... there you have it. 

 

No work today.

No Work

I did see a white pick-up truck leaving the site pulling a trailer with the one wheeled generator on it about 10am this morning.
No work though.

Nothing to see here.

As of 11am today there has been no new work at the bridge site.
If you want to see a picture just look back to the first week in October. Except for moving equipment around, nothing has changed.

State DOT has us waiting ... still.

We are still waiting on parts that should have been ordered and built before they closed this busy road.
Inexcusable.

Wheel in the sky.

So it appears that the only activity on site today was the rotating of the crane so they could lower the generator they have been suspending and remove a wheel from it.

Go figure.

The STATE is holding us up!

According to the County Engineer, the STATE DOT would not allow the bridge fabricator to start pouring the concrete panels (the pieces we are currently waiting on) until THE STATE inspector was present.
Fair enough. I applaud the state's emphasis on safety.

HOWEVER ... this bridge project has been in the works for YEARS! Why did the state not start the parts fabrication process a year ago? 6 months ago? 3 months ago?
How could anyone, in good conscious give the approval to remove a bridge of this consequence without having all of the parts needed to replace it, lined up and ready to go in?
WHY did the state wait until 2 weeks AFTER the new footers were in place, to give the okay to start making the pieces that are needed next in this process?

The engineer's knew that it would take 6 - 8 weeks to fabricate these next pieces.
Did they tell the county that the pieces were not being made and would not be ready when needed?
If they did, why did no one at the county level contact our State Representatives and complain that the State DOT was delaying this project?

It would seem that residents of the Monrovia area are enduring extra months of snarled traffic NOT because "that is how long it takes to replace a bridge" but because some one person at the state level didn't care to do their job in a manor that would reduce additional burden on thousands of taxpayers and apparently because no one at the local level was willing to call them out on this.

Where we stand now ...
The county engineer is hoping that the concrete slabs will be delivered "in a couple more weeks".
Then construction can once again resume.

Swell.

New Month - No work.

Still no work on the bridge today.

No work today. Still.

I will try to call the county tomorrow and see what has gone wrong with this project.

3 weeks - no bridge work.

No work again today.
In the last 3 weeks there has been no work on the bridge itself.
The only work I have seen is 2 days worth of plumbing work done by the Harvest/Monrovia Water Authority.