Tacoma bridge work slow but ongoing

TACOMA – It took about four hours to move one 420-ton piece of steel bridge deck into place below the skeleton of the new Tacoma Narrows bridge.

But preparation for installation of the bridge deck – which could begin as early as this weekend – has taken considerably longer.

It took three weeks for a convoy of cargo ships to transport more than 30 chunks of bridge deck from South Korea to the Puget Sound. Three weeks later, the first of the ships sailed from Commencement Bay to the Tacoma Narrows, a process that required two attempts when scaffolding on the first vessel was too tall to get under the old Narrows bridge. The pieces, measuring on average 120 feet long by 78 feet wide by 30-feet deep, sat on the boats in the Narrows for an additional month.

Then it took two attempts for the next step, which was completed this week. On Thursday, crews used cranes and gigantic winches to transfer the bridge’s first deck section from a cargo ship anchored in the Narrows to a specially designed barge fighting the current below.

Claudia Cornish, state Transportation Department spokeswoman, said bridge builders were thrilled when a gantry crane lifted the first deck section off the Swan at about 12:30 p.m.

“We’ve all been working hard for this day,” Cornish said. “It’s very exciting.” The bridge project began in fall 2002.

Over the next few days, crews will inspect every piece of the more than 400-ton steel structure to make sure it’s ready to be hoisted into place.

Then – maybe this weekend, maybe early next week – the barge will be maneuvered into position so section No. 28 can be hoisted and attached to suspender cables at midspan.

It’s a two-step process bridge workers will repeat dozens of times over the coming months.

The $849 million project is already three months behind schedule, but Dennis Engel, bridge project engineer for the state, said bridge builder Tacoma Narrows Constructors is still on track to meet the latest completion date of July 2007.