A crane being used to tear down the viaduct left a heavy mark on the 5th Street bridge on Tuesday afternoon. Now, engineers will determine if the bridge can be repaired or if it will need to be totally replaced.
The construction company, Manhattan Road and Bridge Co. based out of Tulsa, attempted to move the crane across the 5th Street bridge, but came to a halt on the north side as it sunk into the bridge. Once the crane was removed it left an obvious indention of approximately 40 feet long. The crane may also have been damaged slightly and therefore no longer meets the guidelines needed to be safe to use on the site, the company should consider hiring a crane similar to the ones at https://assisthire.com.au/ in the mean time, whilst they save to purchase a new one.
“During the relocation of a crawler crane over the North 5th Street bridge a crane track penetrated the surface of the bridge,” Manhattan Road & Bridge Company Executive Vice President Todd Saxton told Guthrie News Page in an email.
“Manhattan team members are in consultation with city engineer to correct the damage.”
A support beam was reported to have totally failed and a second beam has separation of approximately two inches.
The bridge was built in the mid 1960’s and has a weight limit ton of 23 tons.
The weight of the crane was not immediately known, but it appears to may have been more than triple the weight limit of the bridge.
Woops!
That’s pretty sorry how an alleged bridge building company could destroy an existing bridge, regardless of when it was built, by moving an exceedingly larger than they knew, or should have known, implement over the bridge. Where’s this going? Does that out of city firm expect Guthrie to patch the destroyed roadway?
Alston, I have to say you took the words right out of my mouth. Also, this little Oopsy makes me question their capabilities a bit, and makes me question how safe we really are driving over the new bridge. The last time I saw the north side of the new bridge (before it was open for traffic) I joked about it seeming scary that it was held together at the east end by rebar and plastic wrap. But truly, I’m hoping it is not too costly to fix & that Guthrie doesn’t have to foot the bill.