A crew member yelled “fire in the hole” just before some residents of the Sioux City metropolitan area heard a loud bang echoing off the Big Sioux River.
In a historic flood at the end of June, a BNSF railroad bridge partially collapsed. The middle of the truss bridge sank into the water.
Workers began clearing some of the debris, but had to dismantle two large bridge sections to finish their job. Fourteen cutting charges on the South Dakota side of the river broke the 100-year-old bridge into three pieces.
Sheila Brummer
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Iowa Public Radio
“Then they take the material out of the river, deposit it on the bank and start to further break it down so they can transport it away,” said Amy McBeth, director of public affairs at BNFS.
She said that after the bridge is demolished, it will take nine months for a new, more modern bridge to be built in its place. She did not provide any information on the cost or whether insurance would help finance the expensive project.
Sheila Brummer
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Iowa Public Radio
“The community is still recovering from the impacts of this historic high water volume,” she added.
McBeth said the railroad and its coastal partner, D&I Railroad, were forced to use other routes to get the region’s raw materials to markets across the country.
“The railroad carries everything from aggregates to grain to ethanol to consumer goods – you name it. So it’s important for us to be able to move goods across the country and certainly in this region,” McBeth said.
Sheila Brummer
/
Iowa Public Radio
The new bridge will look significantly different from the old truss bridge.
“It’s a modern through-bridge. It’s much more like the modern bridges we have today,” McBeth said. “Obviously, this was a historic amount of water, and a lot of infrastructure was affected by the historic water levels. But the rebuilt bridge will have deeper foundations in the pier to withstand certain future incidents.”
Another blasting operation will be carried out in early September to remove the section on the Iowa side.
“First we need to build a dam so we can get there and help with cranes and equipment and get the material out,” she added.
