Wednesday's Really Big Stuff: the Hoover Dam & new Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge
In a slight change to normal programming, tonight chaps we are going to have a really blokie post & if its blokie, then it has to be big, 'cos blokes like big stuff just like this...
Creeping closer inch by inch, 900 feet above the mighty Colorado River, the two sides of a $160 million bridge at the Hoover Dam slowly take shape...
The bridge will carry a new section of US Route 93 past the bottleneck of the old road which can be seen twisting and winding around and across the dam itself.
When complete, it will provide a new link between the states of Nevada and Arizona . In an incredible feat of engineering, the road will be supported on the two massive concrete arches which jut out of the rock face.
The arches are made up of 53 individual sections each 24 feet long which have been cast on-site and are being lifted into place using an improvised high-wire crane strung between temporary steel pylons.
The arches will eventually measure more than 1,000 feet across. At the moment, the structure looks like a traditional suspension bridge. But once the arches are complete, the suspending cables on each side will be removed. Extra vertical columns will then be installed on the arches to carry the road.
The bridge has become known as the Hoover Dam bypass, although it is officially called the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, after a former governor of Nevada and an American Football player from Arizona who joined the US Army and was killed in Afghanistan.
Work on the bridge started in 2005 and should finish next year. An estimated 17,000 cars and trucks will cross it every day.
The dam was started in 1931 and used enough concrete to build a road from New York to San Francisco . The stretch of water it created, Lake Mead , is 110 miles long and took six years to fill. The original road was opened at the same time as the famous dam in 1936.
An extra note: The top of the white band of rock in Lake Mead is the old waterline prior to the drought and development in the Las Vegas area. It is over 100 feet above the current water level.
Comments
Gives me vertigo just looking at the pics! One heck of a project.
Posted by: Bruce | October 20, 2009 11:39 PM
I've visited the dam a couple of times in the past two years - was TDY to Nellis AFB. To say that both projects are impressive bits of engineering would be understating the case. The white line is actually the high water mark from one year - 1982 I think - where they were dumping water through the spillways as fast as they could to keep the dam from being overtopped.
Posted by: SSG Jeff (USAR) | October 21, 2009 12:04 AM
I've driven Route 93 from Jasper, Canada down to near Phoenix. Fabulous road throughout.
Mr. FM you and missus would enjoy a short Jaunt from Phoenix to Jasper and back on your bikes. 2700 km one way, great scenery, deserts, mountains, plains, lakes, grand canyons, Las Vegas, drive over the new bridge, take a few short side trips to LA, Salt Lake, etc.
Posted by: Fred Z | October 21, 2009 1:17 AM
Awesome photos! See the kayaks? My Scouts will be doing the trip in two weeks. We start at the base of the dam and head downstream 14 miles.
Posted by: Rumbear | October 21, 2009 2:12 AM
SPECTACULAR!
Posted by: pdwalker | October 21, 2009 4:21 AM
I should point out that the bridge is going to be completed THREE YEARS LATER THAN PLANNED, because it took three years to get the "environmental impact study" completed, studied and okayed.
Kill them all.
Posted by: Kim du Toit | October 21, 2009 7:05 PM
I get vertigo in the car park at the Grand Canyon. My husband loves going to Hoover Dam. I can't even drive across it without getting dizzy and disoriented. It is spectacular.
Posted by: Cricket | October 22, 2009 3:08 PM
A very interesting area, and quite a spectacular one for sightseeing. Back in the mid-90's, on a family trip (self, spouse, daughter, daughter's best friend and son) to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, we had a day when we wanted to do something other than run around Vegas, and had already been to the Grand Canyon for a full day (including a flyover above the canyon by sightseeing plane - you could still do that, back then; don't think it's allowed, anymore) - so, we went on a river-rafting trip down the river below the dam, through Black Canyon. In the picture looking down through the lower canyon from above the dam (the one showing the four penstock towers above the dam), just under the center of the new bridge being constructed, you can see the access road (steep and narrow!) curving down to where we boarded the big inflatable raft for the trip. Whole trip took from mid-morning (we came down from Vegas on a small ex-schoolbus, still painted yellow) until late afternoon, with a couple of stops along the way, for swimming and (near the bottom of the canyon) for lunch. This was in early July so it was HOT!! However, we stayed cool easily enough - the water in the canyon, coming from the bottom layers of Lake Mead is icy cold, even in mid-Summer. We just soaked towels in the river water, and draped them around our necks or over our heads whenever we got heated up.
Fun!!
Posted by: J.S.Bridges | November 6, 2009 6:35 AM