Steve Seidel strode across the gangplank Tuesday, a big grin on his face, and grabbed Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald’s outstretched hand.
“We have a bridge,” Seidel said.
MacDonald grinned back, even bigger. “Yes, we do,” he said, thumping Seidel on the back hard enough to raise a small cloud of dust.
Moments earlier, Seidel and six other ironworkers had pinned into place the last remaining deck section of the new Tacoma Narrows bridge, completing a 5,400-foot connection from shore to shore and bringing the bridge project to a symbolic end.
The connection, reached a few minutes after 9 a.m., made it possible for the first time to walk on the new span from the anchorage on the Tacoma side more than a mile across to the Gig Harbor anchorage.
It also ended the last major phase of the project, the technically difficult and potentially dangerous lifting operation, in which Tacoma Narrows Constructors lifted 46 deck sections, averaging 450 tons each, and hung them from suspension cables.
Strictly speaking, the deck still was not entirely connected. A 25-inch gap between the last two sections was bridged by an aluminum gangplank. That gap will stay there until today or perhaps Thursday, when TNC crews ease back eight deck sections that they moved out of the way to make room for the last deck piece.
But the gap hardly counts, Seidel said. It’s still a bridge.
“You could drive across it,” he said. “I’m from Montana, and we got chuckholes that big.”
Secretary MacDonald agreed. “This is a symbolic end,” he said. “There’s a lot of work still ahead, but it’s a major milestone.
“For the first time people will be able to walk from shore to shore on the new bridge,” MacDonald said. “That’s an accomplishment worth celebrating.”
Lifting crews hung the final section from the main cables nearly a week ago. It remained about 15 feet below the level of the bridge deck while crews prepared for final placement.
On Tuesday morning, when all was ready, massive winches lifted the 504-ton steel structure into place in just 10 minutes.
The Department of Transportation invited the media out on the bridge for the occasion, and photographers snapped pictures of ironworkers while a television news helicopter hovered overhead.
Tuesday’s weather was made to order for a media event. The clear blue sky showed off the entire panorama of the Olympic Range and the sun was warm, a dramatic change from conditions during most of the lift operation.
During the past three months, rain, wind, snow and cold forced Seidel and the rest of the bridge workers off the bridge time after time.
The entire lifting operation took almost six months, more than a month longer than TNC hoped. Part of that was because of delays in getting the lifting gantries and the winch system on deck. Bad weather also hurt.
In a written statement Tuesday, Manuel Rondon, TNC’s project manager, compared the process of building the bridge to a journey. The successful completion of the deck lifts, he said, is a welcome landmark along the way.
“Our journey has achieved a milestone that makes us proud of our efforts again,” Rondon said, “It’s an opportunity to stop at an oasis for a moment and look back at the long road behind us, and to move on in high spirits as we have done day after day.”
Rondon noted that a fair amount of the journey still lies ahead.
Before the bridge opens, TNC still has to finish bolting and welding the deck sections together.
It also has to wrap the main suspension cables with an outer layer of wire and paint them. It needs to prepare the deck surface, including waterproofing and paving, plus all traffic barriers and pedestrian railings.
In addition, it needs to install utilities beneath the bridge deck, and dismantle and remove the heavy equipment and catwalks used in the superstructure construction.
The bridge was originally scheduled to open to traffic in April 2007. The Department of Transportation currently is predicting it will open sometime in August.
Even that estimate depends on good weather for much of the remaining work, cautioned Transportation Department spokeswoman Claudia Cornish.
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