It was built like a cantilever bridge (actually some thought it was one) with cranes on ether side providing support to the pieces as they were lowered into place. The final bridge will be a “simple” arc if I remember right. If you can find the September/October American Scientist they have an article on the bridges construction. Very neat how they worked around the problem of curing concrete in the Southwest’s summer. Liquid nitrogen and sun shades.
Nah, for flume rides it’s gotta be the Monticello Dam in California.
I seem to remember a TV show about the construction of the bridge, probably on History or Discovery. Didn’t a storm come up fairly early in the construction and blow down one of the towers that were supporting the construction?
Speaking of Hoover Dam, how’s the water level behind the dam doing? The few times I was there, it almost seemed sad to see how far below normal it was. I remember some wet weather in the southwest since then, has it helped?
Yep. The crane and rigging on the Arizona side were destroyed by 70+ mph winds back in September 2006. It caused a nearly 2 year delay in the bridges construction.
The water level is fucked. We’re about to go below the intakes. Lake Mead is at less than 40% of it’s capacity and unless something miraculous happened, is now at it’s lowest level since 1937 (Hoover Dam was completed in 1936, btw).
Whatever wet weather you remember, Lake Mead sadly does not. 2009 saw 1.59 inches of water fall on the LV valley, down from a norm of 4.49 inches. 2010 so far has yielded only about 3 inches of water here. The drought the SW has been under is now in it’s 11th year and is the worst drought on record for the region.
Damn.
I wasn’t just thinking of rain in Las Vegas, though. The watershed that drains into the Colorado River must be huge. I thought it had been wet on the western slopes of the Rockies.
Hoover is not the only dam, though. Are the upstream ones any fuller? Might as well keep the water there as let it flow downstream.
Last I heard (a couple of weeks ago), they were talking about draining some of the water from Lake Powell down to Lake Mead, which would make both lakes low, but at least keep Lake Mead above the intakes.
The lake is so low that Boulder Harbor was closed last month (17 Sept), just 3 weeks before a flash flood took out the marina at Callville Bay (3 Oct). They got the road and the boat ramp cleared, but the marina is fubar.
Man that is awesome.
I was there twice when they were building it. I remember the first time visiting by myself and looking up at the man lift cage on that crane track and feeling my toes curl out of sheer vertigo. Then we saw a Discover channel special wich I got my then 7yr old son to watch with me, because I had already been there once. We got a chance to visit as a family this past Christmas, and my son got to see the bridge under construction for himself, as well as tour the dam. It was particularly cool, because we were actually seeing the site of a Discover channel program, not just a construction site. I will have to tell him now.
The link below shows a time-lapse video of the construction of the bridge!
http://www.hooverdambypass.org/const_photoalbum.htm#BridgeVideo
Click on the top most link titled “Colorado River Bridge Construction” (27 mb)
Anyone know if there are any bike lanes on the new bridge? All I can find is “four lanes”.
Looks like one of the engineers divided by zero.