The St. Francisville side of the bridge is now sporting a very tall pole crane. Looks like that sucker is about 200 feet up. Imagine climbing up that every day and sitting in the cab. Up above the flowing Mississippi River, no guy wires and a precarious counter weight to balance things off. Not me.
The reports say the bridge is now better than 75% complete. But to look at it you could not imagine it is that far along. I guess it is all the concrete and pilings located below water line and the approaches to the bridge that are driving that completion estimate. Does not look like much right now, does it?
The little bridges out to the footings are called trestles, like a railroad bridge. They have supported all the activity so far and will be removed at completion of the bridge. They provide access to the footings which are set into the river only about a 150 or 200 feet out. The footings or caissons don't really have pilings, they drill holes down and filled them with reinforced concrete, it is about the same as driving pilings. Once in place there is no moving them and then they are capped with concrete.
The bridge structure will begin to rise now. I suspect almost continous concrete pouring until the top is reached. You can see reinforce steel in the construction yard. There will be a ton of activity now. The hard part is done, now the pretty part gets completed.
Oh yes, the web spot is www.flation.oxblue.com/jjab/. It is the location of a web camera that takes a picture every couple of hours. The web page has a calendar and you can go back in time to see the changes.
Maybe this time next year we can drive over to St. Francisville for dinner.
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