THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9608040052
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY NAOMI AOKI, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 65 lines
Cars, trucks and trailers were moving smoothly across the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel Saturday afternoon, one day after a cracked piling closed one lane of westbound traffic and two days ahead of the repair schedule.
``Things went wonderfully,'' said Tyler Richardson, superintendent of maintenance for the bridge-tunnel. ``It went just like we put it on paper.''
The repairs went even better than planned, leaving only questions of responsibility and cost to be settled. Officials estimated Friday that repairing the hairline crack would take three days. But after a long night of work and good weather conditions, the crew knew it would come in well before its Monday rush-hour deadline.
Bridge officials opened the quarter-mile stretch of bridge from the 15th View Street exit to the tunnel at 2:30 p.m. Saturday - 28 hours after closing it.
By 3 p.m., traffic, which was backed up to the Willoughby Bay Marina for most of the day, had returned to normal. Friday, when traffic conditions were at their worst, cars and trucks were lined up bumper-to-bumper and side-by-side for six miles.
``We had a good idea that we could finish early, but you don't know about supplies coming in or weather, so we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time,'' Richardson said.
With the repairs behind them, bridge officials can begin their investigation into the accident that caused the piling to crack.
The crack appeared in one of the bridge's main supports, known as a pier cap, sometime Thursday night or early Friday morning. Engineers believe construction from the bridge-widening project caused the pier cap to crack.
Richardson said workers felt a vibration Thursday when they were driving a new piling into the ground just a foot from an existing piling. It is likely that the new piling struck and damaged the old piling, he said.
With the old piling no longer shouldering its share of the bridge's weight, the pressure from the traffic and the bridge cracked the pier cap, which rests between the piling and the bridge deck, Richardson said.
The piling is one of hundreds supporting the bridge, and the crack did not pose an immediate threat to motorists. But officials wanted to quickly fix the crack, which they believe goes all the way through the pier cap, before it got worse.
As part of the investigation, workers will pull up the piling that is suspected of hitting and damaging the other piling. It should provide clues to what happened. Richardson said the investigation will begin either today or Monday morning.
``I don't think anyone is looking to establish blame,'' Richardson said, adding that McLean Contracting, the company responsible for the widening and renovation of the bridge-tunnel and the repairs, has acted professionally.
``It's in the back of everybody's mind that these things can happen, but it seldom does,'' he said.
Until the investigation is completed, work on the bridge on the Norfolk side of the tunnel will be halted. Richardson said he expects the investigation to take a full week.
Work on the bridge on the Hampton side, where all the piling work has been completed, will continue as planned. Workers will remove the concrete walls along the bridge and lay concrete for the bridge widening.
``Now, the issue is going to be who is going to pay for the repairs,'' said Bill Cannell, Transportation Department spokesman.
The cost of the repairs or who will be responsible for the bill has not been determined, officials said.
KEYWORDS: HAMPTON ROADS BRIDGE TUNNEL by CNB