Photo Courtesy of WSSC Two D.C. utility employees needed 12 hours to close a badly corroded pipeline valve. Related Links: Heroes in Hardhats: The Men Who Kept the Water Flowing in Prince George's A last-ditch effort on July 16 by two Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission technicians to close a stubborn, corrosion-covered valve for water-pipeline diversion enabled the Washington, D.C., area water-wastewater utility to bypass the rapidly failing main. Closing the valve averted an extended service outage in a densely populated section during excessively hot weather.The 54-in.-dia reinforced-concrete high-pressure transmission line, installed in 1966, supplies 10 million to 15 million gallons
By most outward appearances, much has changed for Rodgers Builders since its chairman, B.D. Rodgers, first founded the company in 1963. Now with more than 350 associates across three offices, and a diverse project portfolio, the Charlotte, N.C.-based firm's growth has mirrored its hometown's emergence as one of the Southeast's leading economic hubs. Related Links: Rodgers Builders Named 'Contractor of the Year' Builders Get Ready for Southeast Resurgence Looking deeper, though, it is apparent that Rodgers has deviated little from its origin as a conservative company, with leaders who emphasize an old-fashioned personal approach. At the same time, the company
Photo Courtesy NEORSD Talking Heads Project owners are using Twitter to update the public by speaking for the tunnel-boring machines. Above is Mackenzie, northeast Ohio's 1,500-ton TBM, showing its yellow-and-green cutter head. Related Links: Q&A: Ten Minutes With Tunnel Boring Machines That Tweet Barnhart Modular Lift Tower Positions Seattle TBM Perhaps not since Bob the Builder have so many pieces of heavy construction equipment had so much to talk about. Instead of miniature, voice-overed claymation figures on a children's television show, Twitter is featuring actual tunnel-boring machines deployed at jobsites across the U.S. With some help from their human colleagues
Photo by AP Wideworld Hurricane Floyd inundated nearly the entire eastern third of North Carolina in 1999, making clear the state's flood-map revision process was dangerously broken. Related Links: Moving On After Sandy After Sandy, FEMA Flood Maps Are a Moving Target The arrival of Hurricane Floyd in September 1999 could not have come at a worse time for North Carolina. Torrential rains pounded vast areas of the state already saturated by Hurricane Dennis just three weeks before, resulting in massive flooding that exceeded 500-year flood levels in many eastern river basins.Floyd revealed deficiencies in North Carolina’s flood hazard information
Related Links: Special Report on Sandy Recovery Efforts How Sandy-Struck Regions are Coming Back FEMA Service Center: How To Find Your Flood Map National Flood Insurance Program: Flood Hazard Mapping Over recent months, a new storm has roiled the storm-battered communities of New York and New Jersey.The Federal Emergency Management Agency's "advisory base flood elevation" (ABFE) maps—delivered to guide the start of the post-Sandy rebuilding of homes, businesses and public facilities until more comprehensive "flood insurance rate maps" (FIRMs) can be completed—have been assailed by local residents and leaders. Many complain the ABFEs overstate the vulnerability of areas to flooding
Photo Courtesy of ERC Construction activities continue for a new Virginia tunnel as a lawsuit looms. Related Links: Virginia Takes Steps To Propel Two Transportation Projects The $2.1-billion Midtown Tunnel project in Virginia is the latest flashpoint in the ongoing debate over the imposition of tolls on existing transportation infrastructure.On March 13, the Portsmouth, Va., City Council unanimously endorsed a citizen-driven lawsuit challenging the use of tolls to help fund construction of the new tube parallel to the 50-year-old, 4,300-ft-long Midtown Tunnel, which carries more than one million vehicles a month between the city and Norfolk.The public-private project (P3) involving
The Georgia Institute of Technology has turned its 400-acre campus in Atlanta into a giant living-learning laboratory for sustainable design and construction.
Related Links: For Panamax Port Expansions, The Freight Wait is Almost Over Taking Asphalt's Temperature From automated vehicles to infrared bars that check for uniform temperatures in paved asphalt, the transportation industry is embracing high-tech tools and concepts. The current two-year federal legislation called MAP-21 promotes many such initiatives, including enhanced intelligent construction data, to help builders and operators achieve greater efficiency, reliability and safety in moving people and goods.MAP-21 also includes an emphasis on improved freight networks—a watershed inclusion that inspired multiple sessions at the Transportation Research Board's 92nd annual meeting on Jan. 13-17. The sessions consistently featured representatives
Following in the footsteps of schools that have brokered development partnerships between high-tech companies and academia as well as cities that have revitalized struggling districts into 24/7 neighborhoods, the University of Florida is going outside its Gainesville campus gates and stepping into the shoes of an urban renewer. The UF goal is to turn an adjacent neighborhood full of underutilized low-rise buildings into a 40-acre compact community where people work, live and play. Having overcome the many zoning, infrastructure and cultural challenges that stood in its way, Innovation Square—which could encompass more than 5 million sq ft when it is
Photo Courtesy of UCSF Ergonomics researchers at UCSF have rolled out a new drill jig for drilling horizontally and at other odd angles. The device reduces fatigue, and it can cut down on silica-dust exposure, scientists say. Related Links: Inverted Drill Press Cuts Pain, Fatigue in Overhead Drilling ENR Newsmakers of 2010: Dr. David Rempel Having made overhead concrete drilling easier with an innovative, upside-down drill press, Dr. David Rempel and his University of California, San Francisco research team have turned their attention to the physical demands of drilling horizontally and at other angles.Their efforts have yielded a new universal
