Ready or not for bridge day

Ask ironworker Tammy Weiskittel if it will happen, and she'll cringe and offer an optimistic "Hope so."

Facing the same question -- one he's been staring at for months -- project manager Larry Owens shrugs his shoulders and says, "We're trying."

And, finally, Missouri Department of Transportation area engineer Stan Johnson weighs in with a pragmatic answer: "It's going to be nip and tuck."

On the deck of the nearly finished Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge, it's the $100 million question -- will the bridge be ready for its first dose of public traffic one week from today, at the official dedication? -- which takes place regardless of whether the bridge is done.

With one week left, the only answer anyone can proffer is this: Maybe.

If it's not ready by then, there will be some reasons -- weather delays, late equipment shipments, maybe even a few late changes of plan.

What the reason won't be is lack of effort, said Owens, the project manager for Traylor Brothers, the firm handling most of the project.

"We're doing all we can," he said Friday morning. "We're hoping we can come in under the wire."

The crews of carpenters, equipment operators, iron workers, laborers, teamsters, concrete finishers and electricians are already working 12-hour days, six days a week.

There's a small night crew and workers have already been told they're going to have to work Sunday in order to get the bridge finished by Dec. 13, which is nearly seven years after the groundbreaking ceremony in 1996.

There's still work to be done. Owens said there's one tower crane left that was planned to be taken down this weekend. Some steel railing needs to be installed in spots and painted.

Sealers need to be applied to the deck. Lights also need to be installed on the bridge approach. Wind ties must still be attached to the cables to keep them from vibrating in strong gusts.

The one variable is the weather, which is looking to get worse.

"The weather's already killing us," Owens said. "If it's going to rain all next week, it will definitely hurt us. We need good weather."

Johnson said that some of the work can be done after the bridge opens for traffic. What can't wait, he said, is overhead work.

"Some things we can do with traffic on the bridge," he said. "Working up high is a safety issue. It doesn't take much to drop from real high to cause problems."

There is also a concrete pour to make up on the bow tie, which is the strut that's halfway up and goes between the two towers. Johnson said the bow tie has an access hole for workers that has to be closed.

There's also miscellaneous clean-up work that's yet to be done, along with some electrical work on the top of the towers. Aviation lights must be installed so airplanes know the bridge is there in a fog.

"So there's plenty to do," Johnson said.

The bridge cost about $100 million to build. According to MoDOT, the total cost of the project reaches about $170 million once peripheral work is factored in, mainly the highway work on both sides of the new bridge.

The Illinois Department of Transportation widened Highway 146 from two lanes to five lanes from the bridge to just past Bader Lane. On the Missouri side, it was the construction of the new four-lane Highway 74, which goes from the new bridge to Interstate 55.

Even if the bridge isn't ready for traffic by next Saturday, Johnson said the delay shouldn't be long.

"It should be fairly close after that," he said. "If it doesn't happen Saturday, it won't be two or three months away. It will be soon. But we hope it is Saturday."

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137