One of the tasks on the path toward completing the main span of the new bridge is clearing the many tons of equipment and materials that are currently staged on the road deck to enable the placement of a concrete overlay on the road surface. With the middle gap of the main span recently filled, construction crews decommissioned and began disassembling two of the 350,000-pound orange derrick cranes that were critical in performing the balanced-cantilever construction of the main span.
The photo above shows what’s left of the east-facing derrick crane on the west tower, which built the road segments toward the middle of the new bridge. Its complementary crane on the east-tower side already has been completely removed. In the coming days, the last vestiages of this crane will be taken away. A few weeks later, the two derrick cranes at the approach structures will be removed once those gaps are filled.
