BUILDING a BRIDGE

A truck, with specialized trailer, backs a girder around the corner and onto SR 532. The girders are too long to make the lefthand turn under the I-5 overpass. Wednesday, at midnight, the truck came from the dark.

It eased down the I-5 off-ramp, rolled straight through the light at SR 532, and continued up the northbound onramp, dragging its enormous load behind.

Then it stopped.

Slowly, the truck reversed direction, gaining momentum as 224,000 pounds of steel-reinforced concrete girder – 186 feet long and eight feet high – pulled it back down the ramp and around the corner, where it straightened out on SR 532.

Then, amidst a caravan of flashing lights and oversized load signs, it rumbled west, into the night, leaving only empty pavement behind.

In Stanwood, it idled in front of Shell with its twin, one in front of the other, laying siege to the center turn lane. Two blocks of waiting in the cold.

A truck carries a girder to the top of the existing bridge, where it will be picked up and deposited in place by two yellow boom cranes. Finally, it lurched forward, climbing the approach to the General Mark Clark Bridge. There, the truck’s final destination, two Sicklesteel sentries awaited its burden.

The cranes boomed into position and dropped their hooks. Men climbed ladders to reach the top of the girder, where they shackled cranes and cargo together.

Traffic backed up behind the flaggers, watching. Waiting.

In a silent struggle with gravity, the girder lifted free of the truck, tandem cranes directing it into the air and over the side of the bridge. It hung briefly, an apex, before dipping out of sight and coming to rest on the pier caps below.

The truck relaxed, free of its burden.

Wednesday night, girders number three and four were delivered from Tacoma and installed on the new Mark Clark Bridge.

A truck idles in downtown Stanwood before making the final leg of its journey. The bridge requires 17 girders total to support the new roadway, but only seven will be this long – the remaining 10 are significantly shorter. The new bridge is scheduled for completion in August.

The bridge is part of the $84 million SR 532 corridor project, funded by the 2005 “nickel” gas tax. The entire upgrade, with improvements between the Stanwood I-5 exit and Terry’s Corner on Camano Island, is scheduled to be completed by spring 2011.

Staff Reporter Jeremiah O’Hagan: 629-8066 ext. 125 or ohagan@scnews. com.