Workers make last large concrete pour on Emerson bridge

The giant steel-and-concrete bridge taking shape over the Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau moved a step closer to completion this week with 5.8 million pounds of concrete poured for construction of yet another pier for the $100 million span.

Throughout Wednesday night, trucks with concrete rumbled across the narrow 74-year-old bridge that the new four-lane span will replace.

The latest massive concrete pour began about 4 p.m. Wednesday and was completed by noon Thursday, state highway officials said. Coincidentally, construction crews were doing similar pier work 75 years ago this week in constructing the existing river bridge, newspaper accounts show.

The latest work involved about 200 truckloads of concrete, said Larry Owens, project manager for Traylor Brothers Inc., the main contractor on the bridge project.

"It's the last really big one," Owens said of the concrete pour.

The concrete pour didn't disrupt traffic on the old bridge because the work was done largely at night, highway officials said.

"It kind of works out better for everybody," said Stan Johnson, area engineer for the Missouri Department of Transportation, which is overseeing the project.

Johnson said the work didn't cause traffic congestion for motorists or the construction crews. "The trucks weren't having any trouble getting in and out," he said.

Owens said the pier near the Illinois shore should be completed by late winter or early spring. Meanwhile, crews continue to install steel cables for the main bridge span.

The entire bridge is expected to be completed by next fall. "It should be completed by about a year from now, assuming we don't have major floods or extremely bad weather," Johnson said.

Owens said there will be some more concrete pours but none involving as much concrete.

When completed the new cable-stay bridge will contain about 250 million pounds of concrete, highway officials said.

The new bridge will be 543 feet longer than the current span. The new bridge will be nearly 100 feet wide compared to 22 feet wide for the existing bridge.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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