Kentucky’s 1931 Ledbetter road Bridge comes to an explosive end

Specialist demolition contractors working for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet have successfully brought down one truss span of the Old Ledbetter Bridge near Paducah. The bridge has been taking traffic across the Mississippi River since 1931. Boat traffic on the Tennessee River was halted for about 90 minutes by the U.S. Coast Guard. KYTC said there were several audible warning signals, then a countdown, followed by a flash and puff of smoke from the explosive charges. As sound of the explosion echoed a
October 1, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
Specialist demolition contractors working for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet have successfully brought down one truss span of the Old Ledbetter Bridge near Paducah. The bridge has been taking traffic across the Mississippi River since 1931.

Boat traffic on the Tennessee River was halted for about 90 minutes by the U.S. Coast Guard. KYTC said there were several audible warning signals, then a countdown, followed by a flash and puff of smoke from the explosive charges. As sound of the explosion echoed along the river banks, KYTC said the steel truss dropped into about 30 feet (10m) of water below the bridge.

Once an all-clear was issued, river traffic was allowed to resume and a crane was moved in to start pulling steel from the river. The constractor believes it should take about 48 hours to remove the steel and place it on barges to be hauled to a scrap yard.

See it happen on the video below, which was forwarded to World Highways by Demolition News website:
Road Structures Engines, Components & Tyres

Related Content

  • Amey wins Severn Bridge maintenance deal
    August 20, 2020
    Amey will manage two other structures apart from the 1.6km-long M48 Severn Bridge.
    Read More
  • New German autobahn bridge under constriuction
    May 1, 2015
    Crane manufacturer Manitowoc has supplied six Potain cranes to German contractor Max Bögl. These machines are being used for constructing a new bridge carrying the A3 autobahn, close to Limburg. Working at over 70m high, the cranes tower over the Lahn Valley. The cranes for this project were supplied by Max Bögl’s subsidiary, Max Bögl Transport & Geräte. The three topless Potain MDT 222 cranes were selected for the work as they feature tip heights of up to 76.2m and can operate with a working radius of
    Read More
  • Bridge of international accord from Russia-China
    May 29, 2018
    A new bridge project joining China and Russia is a sign of international accord between the two nations – Mike Woof writes A new bridge spanning what China calls the Heilongjiang River and which is known as the Amur River in Russia, is a clear sign of an important international accord between the two countries. Discussions over the bridge project were first started between China and Russia in the 1980s, with both nations seeing many changes in leadership since that time. But while the political discussion
    Read More
  • CECE 2018 conference Rome: the sector powers up for digitisation
    March 20, 2019
    Getting the human-machine interface for equipment automation right is a lot trickier than expected. David Arminas reports from the CECE conference in Rome For many contractors, digitisation is key for improving on-site operational efficiency. But it may be time to take stock of progress and examine what does and doesn’t work. That is not to say that the anchors should be thrown out to halt development. Far from it. In the past eight months, the CECE - Committee for European Construction Equipment – led
    Read More

Highlighted Content