THE WIDER VIEW: Taking shape, the new bridge at the Hoover Dam
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.
Pretty Awesome......
