The Challenge

The Draper Approach

Results Realized

The Challenge

Interstate I-65 in Birmingham, Alabama was not the route to be traveling the morning of January 5, 2002. An 18-wheel petroleum tanker truck crashed near the I-20/59 interchange, one of the states busiest, and exploded into a ball of flames. Heat from the explosion buckled the massive steel girders supporting the I-65 Southbound overpass to within several feet of the Northbound lanes below, forcing the closing of the Interstate. The bridge would have to be re-built from the ground up.

Within two weeks of the explosion, engineers for the Alabama Department of Transportation had completed plans, bid and awarded a contract to construct the new bridge. The contract required that completion take place within 90 days and included the highest penalties and rewards ever imposed for a state highway project, $25,000 a day.

The Draper Approach

Two Birmingham companies, The Morris Group and Brasfield & Gorrie teamed up in a joint venture to accept the challenge to rebuild the bridge. A construction schedule was developed with the assistance of Draper & Associates to complete the project within 56 days. This aggressive undertaking would require crews working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week as well as the accelerated fabrication of the 72 and 140-foot long precast concrete girders.

Construction began January 21, 2002 with excavation and pile driving for the four new concrete bents and abutments. Separate crews simultaneously worked each end of the bridge substructure in order to expedite construction for placement of the new girders. The fabrication, delivery and installation of girders completed ahead of schedule and the last superstructure concrete test took place February 25, 2002.

Results Realized

Work completed 18 days ahead of schedule and 52 days ahead of the 90-day contract requirement, resulted in a $1.3 million bonus to the joint venture contractors and a substantial savings to the state. Draper and Associates is proud to have had a role in the success of this project.

Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, reopening the bridge on February 26, 2002, noted that the incentives and methodology utilized for the early completion of this project would be used as an example for future highway projects in the state.