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

  • India plans major infrastucture investment
    April 5, 2012
    India says it turned its Commonwealth Games into a world-class success, and now it aims to do the same with its infrastructure. Patrick Smith reports On October, 2010 India put itself on the world stage, and disaster appeared to loom as a catalogue of problems dogged its biggest ever sporting event. Costing nearly US$2 billion to stage, the most expensive Commonwealth Games ever were, according to some, in doubt. After years of planning some projects were incomplete, there were health scares and a br
    Read More
  • Tunnel Boom in Central and Eastern Europe
    September 15, 2015
    Following the success of the 41st World Tunnel Congress held in Croatia last May, World Highways looks at two signi_ cant projects in Slovakia and Serbia – Adriana Potts reports Central and Eastern Europe is buzzing with a number of major projects being developed - including highways, bridges and tunnels – and with many more in the pipeline. The region is expected to be highly active with plans for developing infrastructure in the next two decades, according to Davorin Koli , president of the Croatian
    Read More
  • Terex Superlift 3800 crawler crane lifts Schoneck Bridge into place
    January 4, 2016
    The new 15m-long, 66tonne Schöneck bridge was recently installed in Germany’s Saarland municipality of Kirkel. Trier-based Steil Kranarbeiten used its Terex Superlift 3800 lattice boom crawler crane to complete the project. Two months before, the old 1960s bridge, not then in use, was cut into eight sections and lifted out using a Terex AC 350/6 all-terrain crane. “Since both the old and the new bridges cross over the Intercity-Express Paris-Mannheim electric train route, overhead lines had to be disconn
    Read More
  • More Norway wooden bridges to open
    February 6, 2023
    Statens Vegvesen is working to solve the challenges related to the bridges that are still closed after the collapse of a bridge in Tretten last August.
    Read More

Highlighted Content