Now I want to demolish something, anything

I stood in awe last night in the middle of Interstate 5 in Burlington and watched crews attack and destroy the SR 11/Chuckanut Drive overpass. It was reduced from a functioning road to a pile of rubble in a matter of hours. All that concrete and steel didn’t stand a chance against power of the hydraulic machinery.

(In case you can't tell, I'm the tall one in the middle.)


Crews were using equipment that looked like a giant steel T-rex and a jackhammer on steroids. The machines ripped through the steel and concrete like they were tearing wrapping paper off a present.



There is just something about watching construction equipment tear down stuff that is awesome. It’s too bad that I wasn’t Mike Rowe from the show Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel. I’m sure that if he was on-site last night, the crew would have let him ride in the excavators and a take a whack at the bridge. I imagine the demolition was like taking a swing at a stationary piñata with a bat. Who doesn’t love to hit piñatas? I definitely wanted a turn so I could take a swing.

The demolition was an impressive display of power and might. From start to finish, the whole process took less than six hours.

This was the second time in five years that I’ve had the opportunity to stand in the middle of Interstate 5 and watch bridge demolition. Both times I’ve mentally noted how weird it is to stand in the middle of I-5 without having traffic whizzing by – and how cool it must be to operate one of those giant machines knocking down the bridge. Maybe next time we take a bridge down, they’ll let me have a turn.

I burned the midnight oil to stay up late and capture pictures and the story. I went to bed some time around 4:30 a.m. and then was back at work by 10:30 a.m. I'm definitely going to bed early tonight.