Lake Champlain bridge demolition between New York and Vermont
Earlier today, a set of controlled explosives completed the Lake Champlain Bridge demolition on an unsafe stretch of roadway between New York and Vermont. The explosion took down the 2,184-foot-long span between Crown Point, N.Y., and Addison, Vermont which had been officially closed on October 16th. Onlookers stood in the snow to see the concrete and steel go crashing down into the ice and water below.
It took the Idaho-based Advanced Explosives Demolition 800 pounds of explosives packed into 500 charges to do the job at around 10 AM EST. The 80-year old bridge was called unsafe when engineered surveyed the erosion occurring on its concrete piers.
The new bridge will be completed by the 2011 summer, with construction starting in the spring. The Lake Champlain bridge demolition sees the end of a bridge which opened way back in 1929 for traffic, and was originally a toll bridge which connected NY 185 in New York to VT 17 in Vermont . Tolls were taken away in 1987. The bridge was also one of only two bridges that allowed travelers to cross Lake Champlain. The only other way to cross is by Ferry.
See the bridge demolition video at YouTube from WPTZ Channel 5.
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