Bridge blast goes as planned
2 of old Broadway span’s footings demolished; 2 remain
At 9:01 a.m. Sunday, the four footings that supported the 93-year-old Broadway Bridge stood firm in the Arkansas River. By 9:02 a.m., only two remained.
The two concrete footings in the northern half of the river disappeared into a crater of water right on schedule.
Sunday’s demolition was the third in a series of blasts to make way for a new bridge connecting Little Rock and North Little Rock. But it was the first that went exactly according to plan.
The first two explosions — which targeted the steel arch section of the bridge on Oct. 11 and the six concrete arches on Oct. 15 — failed to completely destroy their respective sections of the bridge, requiring heavy machinery to finish the job.
On Sunday, the explosives didn’t disappoint.
“We assume all the footings were broken apart into pieces that can be easily removed,” Danny Straessle, a spokesman for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, said Sunday.
Only about a foot of the concrete columns was visible above the water before the blasts. Holes were drilled 25 feet into the concrete and packed with explosives, according to the Highway Department.
The footings must be removed to 10 feet below the river’s bottom.
Sunday’s event didn’t attract the same attention as this month’s earlier blasts. A small handful of spectators — mostly joggers taking a break — watched the river swallow the footings Sunday from the southern bank. Much of the North Little Rock shore was closed for safety.
Richard Doyle, 29, of Little Rock paused his morning run along the river to watch the action. He hadn’t planned it, but he stopped after noticing the group of orange-vested Highway Department workers.
“It made my exercise a little bit more interesting,” he said.
The river’s navigation channel near Sunday’s explosions briefly closed to river traffic.
The final two footings — the only remaining pieces of the Broadway Bridge — will be demolished in the coming weeks after the contractors chisel down most of the concrete above the water, Straessle said. Those explosions will be the last for the bridge project.
“We expect something similar” to Sunday’s explosions, Straessle said.
The two southern footings present contractors with a slightly different challenge than those destroyed Sunday. Not only are they about 50 years newer, they abut the new bridge’s recently built footings, requiring increased caution to avoid damage to the new structures.
The southernmost footing also rests against the riverbank on the Little Rock side, putting the blast closer to people and infrastructure.
The Broadway Bridge closed Sept. 28, and the dismantling began. Massman Construction Co. of Kansas City, Mo., was awarded the $98.4 million contract and given 180 days to remove the old bridge and complete the new one.
The clock started to tick on Oct. 1, and Massman will have to pay $80,000 for every day the bridge isn’t open to traffic after the allotted time.
The company will receive $80,000 for every day the bridge is opened early.
The contractor must have all debris removed from the river bottom by the end of the year. On Jan. 15, it must present proof to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that the river has been cleared of scraps, Straessle said.