ohio 25 2015

By Irwin RapoportCEG CORRESPONDENT

Early in the morning of July 1, afire caused by a tanker truck carry-ing ethanol exploded under abridge on Interstate 70 on the out-erbelt going around Columbus,Ohio. This required emergencywork to be done to repair thebridge and adjacent ramp — a$1.186 million Ohio Departmentof Transportation (ODOT) con-tract that went to Shelly & SandsInc. (S&S) a day after the incident.The bridge repair work was

done in 18 days and reopened totraffic on July 21.Firemen from the Columbus

Fire Department put out the blaze,which started around 6 a.m., in twohours. ODOT personnel were onlyable to access the site at 1:30 p.m.,nearly eight hours after the inci-dent, when the site was deemed tobe safe. The fire reached a temper-ature of 1,800 degrees at its peak.The concrete slab bridge that

carries traffic into Columbus fromthe west is at the juncture of theeastbound I-70 and I-270.“We had a tanker that rolled

over and caught fire under thatbridge,” said Matt Bruning, presssecretary, ODOT. “and causedsuch severe damage to one of thespans of the bridge that we actual-ly had to replace it. That was donethrough emergency federal fund-ing — they front us the money thatis already allocated to Ohio so thatwe could do the repair and we paythat back when we either reach anagreement with the insurance com-pany or the trucking company torepay that money back.”Following shutting down the

affected section of highway anddealing with the fire, ODOT staffquickly put together the process to

prepare a contract for bids. Thetender was made on the day of thefire and of the four companies thatsubmitted, S&S was chosen onJuly 2, with the 30-day completion

period beginning on July 3.“They did an excellent job in

getting that bridge re-opened in 21days,” said Bruning. “It alsoincluded the ramp below the

bridge because when the tankercaught fire, it damaged the con-crete pavement.”S&S also was awarded a cost

plus contract for the building of a

crossover on I-70.“We took the eastbound I-70,

crossed it over to the westboundside and had bi-directional trafficgoing to get around the incident,”said Bruning. “Due to the incident,there was no time to bid so we justsaid ‘do it and bill us.’”The crossover work, when com-

pleted, cost ODOT $653,000.Tim Keller, ODOT’s bridge

engineer, brought on for the emer-gency work, had not seen suchdamage before.“It took us about two minutes to

decide that the concrete span hadto be replaced,” he said, “but ittook a little more time to determinewhat to do with the columns andother parts. We had about an hourbefore we asked the general con-tractors to show up on site to dis-cuss the scope of service.”Cooperation was essential to

repairing the damage quickly andproperly, and the first meeting withS&S occurred 15 minutes after thecontract was awarded“We wanted the contractor to be

successful,” said Keller, “and weput a very aggressive scheduletogether and wanted it to be com-pleted as soon as possible. I hadgiven their project manager mycell phone number and he calledme every day for the first week.We agreed on a general repair strat-egy by 6 p.m. Shelly & Sands hada couple of really good ideas thatwe accepted.”The original scope for the work

called for the removal of twocolumns, which would haverequired temporary support for thebridge as one of its spans wasbeing retained, but the contractorsaid ‘rather than remove thecolumns, why not encapsulatethem?’

Feeling the Heat: Crews Race to Repair Span in 18 Days

OHIO STATE EDITION A Supplement to:

Your Ohio Connection: Ed Bryden, Strongsville, OH • 1-800-810-7640

“The Nation’s Best Read Construction Newspaper… Founded in 1957.”

December 52015

Vol. XVIII • No. 25

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see BRIDGE page 2

“It took us about two minutes to decide that the concrete spanhad to be replaced, but it took a little more time to determinewhat to do with the columns and other parts.”

Tim KellerODOT

Shelly & Sands photoEarly in the morning of July 1, a fire caused by a tanker truck carrying ethanol exploded under abridge on Interstate 70 on the outerbelt going around Columbus, Ohio.

• December 5, 2015 • www.constructionequipmentguide.com • Ohio State Supplement • Construction Equipment Guide

ODOT Continually Tests, Updates Concrete Formulas “It was a really good idea and it saved

time and eliminated the need to support thespan,” said Keller. “Some of the reinforcingsteel details needed to be clarified. The con-tractor wanted to do a couple of things thatwere slightly different from the originalbridge design plans to meet today’s stan-dards. We told them to use the original plansand some of the reinforcing steel they had attheir shop was slightly different, whichmatched today’s standards. We decided onthis issue quickly and kept working. Suchdecisions were made on a regular basisthroughout the work.”ODOT had its laboratory test the dam-

aged materials and concrete, from the deckand cores from the columns and reinforcedsteel — the day after the fire, and it had theresults the next day.“1,800 degrees Fahrenheit is pretty

intense and to a certain extent,” said Keller,“you can’t plan for such heat. A fire on abridge is so very rare and it’s not one thedesign criteria for our bridges. A fire of theduration and heat that occurred, you can’tdesign against it, but the bridge held out forquite a while and after the fire was put out, itwas still standing.”ODOT continually tests and updates its

concrete formulas and it does not place a fireretardant in the mixes.

“There isn’t a need as concrete does real-ly well in a fire to dissipate heat and thisbridge did not fall down,” said Keller, whonotes that steel receives protection in verticalconstruction. “It’s not a requirement for ourstructures, nor should it, because the occur-

rence of such an event is rare. The steel onthe damaged bridge did not melt — it wassoft and deflected under the heat — that wasinteresting.”Shelly & Sands assigned Robert Hunt Jr.,

Shelly & Sands photoTim Keller, ODOT’s bridge engineer, brought onfor the emergency work, had not seen suchdamage before.

Shelly & Sands photoThe crossover work, completed in two and a half days via 24/7 work, was given toShelly & Sands as the fire was burning.

BRIDGE from page 1

see BRIDGE page 4

Shelly & Sands photoCooperation was essential to repairing the damage quickly and properly, and thefirst meeting with Shelly & Sands occurred 15 minutes after the contract wasawarded.

Construction Equipment Guide • Ohio State Supplement • www.constructionequipmentguide.com • December 5, 2015 •

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senior bridge engineer, to manage the project. Tom O’Brien,another S&S bridge engineer, was on site first for the firm onJuly 1 and as of July 2, both engineers were involved withthe project.“It was fortunate that it wasn’t a structural steel bridge,

because if it had been, it would have been months to securethe beams and other materials to rebuild the bridge,” he said,“but the fact it was a slab bridge ensured that the buildingmaterials were relatively available. The fire damaged theunderside of the deck and the concrete had popped awayfrom the reinforcing steel — the steel was dangling from the

underside of the deck. Certain columns took the brunt of theblaze and were substantially damaged. It was obvious thatyou could not put traffic on the bridge.”The S&S bid was submitted at 2 p.m. and at 2:15 p.m.

Hunt and his staff had their first meeting with the ODOT, andat 3:30 p.m. a meeting was held with the ODOT bridge engi-neer on site.“By 6 p.m. a consensus was reached as far as the best way

to accomplish their goals as quickly as possible,” said Hunt.“The owner changed the scope based on our suggestions anddeveloped a plan that could best suit the availability of mate-rials and accelerate the project. This was over the July 4

weekend and there were no materials available.“So we pulled out of inventory reinforcing steel that was

available,” he said. “This material was extra left over fromprior ODOT projects.”The crossover work, completed in two and a half days via

24/7 work, was given to S&S as the fire was burning.“We happened to have a night-time paving operation a

mile down the I-70,” said Hunt, “and ODOT decided thatthey had to bypass traffic around the bridge, so on an emer-gency/cost-plus basis, they hired us, because we were in thearea, to design the crossovers, put in pavements, and diverttraffic away from the bridge and onto the other side of theroad.”Although S&S had 30 days to do the bridge work, they

opted for 24/7 shifts to get the bridge job done more rapidly. “We expended over 200 man-hours per-day,” he said, not-

ing that the crews ranged between five and 15 men depend-ing on type of work being done. I was asked at one point dur-ing an interview ‘why don’t we do this all the time?’ It’simportant to understand this project was an exception to therule and that the industry could not sustain a pace like this onall projects.“We had a core group of probably 10 people and we

brought in others when we needed them,” he added.“Sometimes people were off for a day. When we needed acertain skill, we brought certain people on. Some of our crewmembers had over 100-hour weeks for two weeks.”“I give Bob Hunt and Shelly & Sands a lot of credit for the

scheduling and getting the equipment and people for thework,” said Keller. “They did a great job and the key was tocommunicate the goals, targets, and schedules.”Two subcontractors were brought in for the bridge work

— one to erect the reinforcing steel in the deck and another,Vasta Construction, to install the carbon fiber wrap on thepier columns and caps.“They worked around our work and were on site almost

every weekday,” said Hunt, “putting in long hours.”For the crossover work, various small subcontractors were

brought in for striping, milling, etc.The bridge work and damaged pavement under the bridge

required the use of 530 cu. yds. (405.3 cu m) of concrete, and

S&S Won Bid for Project as Fire Burned on I-70 Bridge

Shelly & Sands photoThe concrete slab bridge that carries traffic intoColumbus from the west is at the juncture of the east-bound I-70 and I-270.

see BRIDGE page 6

BRIDGE from page 2

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50 tons (45.3 t) of reinforcing steel. The crossover work, ledby Jeff Harper, project manager, placed 1,525 tons (1,383 t)of stone and 2,575 tons (2,336 t) of asphalt in 2 and a halfdays with a crew varying between 15 and 20.The crews demonstrated their abilities to deal with emer-

gency situations and put their skills to the test.“They knew that their efforts were appreciated by the

company,” said Hunt, “and they recognized the importanceof this work to the city of Columbus, Shelly & Sands andODOT — they took pride in that and the successful out-come.”

Hunt stressed the roles of Josh Edwards, the onsite super-intendent; Tom O’Brien, the onsite project engineer; andRyan Grezlik, the general bridge superintendent for thebridge project.“They were the three that were instrumental, more than

anyone,” he said, “for the success.”“It didn’t take long to get our personnel into the flow of

the project,” said Edwards, who has been with S&S forseven years, “but the hours were long and our crews weretired by the end of the project. Coordination of so manyworkers in a confined work area was a big challenge.”O’Brien, who joined the company in 2008, has worked on

many bridge projects.“Once you get past the shock of seeing such damage, your

mind begins to turn out ideas of the best way to fix it,” hesaid. “Once we were awarded the contract, we immediatelybegan generating sketches and drawings to fabricate rein-forcing steel, form the columns and caps and design thefalsework to support the new deck.”Grezlik, a 13-year veteran of S&S, looked forward to the

challenge.“The initial mobilization of needed equipment over the

July 4 holiday was the biggest challenge we faced in gettinga good start out of the gate,” he said.Mechanics were on call to repair any equipment for both

projects. For the bridge work, S&S assigned a Hitachi Z-450excavator with a Genesis GRD-400 cruncher; Cat 220 and320 excavators, a Cat 930 wheel loader, several smaller rub-ber tired backhoes and various air compressors, manlifts,forklifts and light plants.“There was a lot of jackhammer work,” said Hunt.The crossover work had operators using a wide variety of

excavators, wheel loaders, compactors, dozers, rollers, dumptrucks and asphalt paving equipment.On Oct. 6 Keller and Hunt presented a lecture on the

bridge work at an Association for Bridge Construction andDesign (Central Ohio chapter) and American Society ofCivil Engineers (Central Ohio Section) luncheon.“The presentation generated a lot of interest and questions

from the attending engineers and contractors,” said Hunt.“This was an unusual project with unique challenges, affect-ing over 100,000 vehicles a day traveling through this majorcentral Ohio corridor.”Keller noted that the repair work was standard, but that the

lessons learned for ODOT was the importance of communi-cations.“We had a couple of missteps at the beginning,” he said,

“but those were resolved and the process was successfullydone between our public information officers (PIO). A lot ofpeople wanted information all at once and our DistrictDeputy Director Ferzan Ahmed and our PIOs did a great job.It was always ‘communicate, communicate and communi-cate’ and in an emergency, it’s very true. Everybody under-stood where we were going and the targets that we had.“When our chief engineer said that on Friday at noon the

crossover would be in place — he communicated that veryeffectively,” he said, “we knew the target and everybodythen had to figure out what we needed to do to meet it.”So far ODOT has not received any requests from other

DOTs and concrete manufacturers about the results of thetests of the damaged materials, but Keller said that this couldbe due to news of the incident remaining local.“We collected pieces of debris to have at our lab in case

anyone wants to examine them,” he said. “I have given anumber of presentations locally to various professionalorganizations on the fire and repair work. We have the dataand we’ll share it with anybody who requests it.”Keller also pointed out that “ODOT gets blamed for

things we shouldn’t get blamed for and sometimes we getblamed for things we deserve to get blamed for,” he said,“but in this case, maybe we don’t get the credit for things wedid right and we got it right in so many areas and made a lotof good decisions. As an organization we’re very proud ofwhat we achieved.”

(This story also can be found on ConstructionEquipment Guide’s Web site at www.constructionequip-mentguide.com.) CEG

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ohio 25 2015

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