A crew member yelled, "fire in the hole,” moments before some Sioux City metro area residents heard a big boom reverberating from along the Big Sioux River.
Historic flooding in late June caused a BNSF Railway bridge to partially collapse. The middle of the truss bridge sagged into the water.
Crews started removing some of the debris but needed to take down two large bridge spans to finish their work. Fourteen cutting charges on the South Dakota side of the river broke the 100-year-old bridge into three pieces.
"Then they'll retrieve the material from the river, put it up on the shoreline and start to break it down further so they can remove it,” said Amy McBeth, director of public affairs at BNSF.
She said after the bridge is removed, it will take nine months for a new, more modern bridge to take its place. She didn’t disclose the cost or whether insurance would help pay for the expensive project.
"The community is still recovering from the impacts of that high, historic water volume,” she added.
McBeth said the railroad and its shoreline partner, D&I Railroad, were forced to use other routes to get the region’s commodities to markets around the country.
"Railroads move everything from aggregate to grain, to ethanol to consumer products — you name it. So, it's important for us to transport goods around the country, and certainly for this region,” McBeth said.
The new bridge will look substantially different from the old truss bridge.
"It’s a modern, thru plate girder bridge. It’s much more similar to modern bridges today." McBeth said. "Obviously, this was historic water volume, and lots of infrastructure was impacted by historic water levels. But the rebuilt bridge will have a deeper footing in the pier to help withstand certain future incidents."
Another blast will happen in early September to remove the span on the Iowa side.
"First, we need to create a causeway so we can get in there to help with cranes and equipment and get the material out," she added.
