Crews have made impressive progress on the new road foundations for Randolph Street and General McIntosh Blvd. Utilities are in the ground and curb and gutter work is nearly complete. This week crews continue to work on placing the rock base in preparation for asphalt.
The fill dirt that is being placed over the old roadway to bring it up to the level of the proposed new road elevation is nearly complete. Crews will continue to fine grade on the new fill and incorporate a geotextile fabric under the top layer of soil. The fabric is made of plastic and somewhat similar to the orange fence with square holes you may have seen used to fence off a construction site. This material is black and the holes are much smaller. When used under roadways, a single layer of this thin plastic material can greatly increase soil strength.
Sanitary sewer crews were working under lights at night this week to tie in the connection of the new 48” diameter PVC gravity sewer. The contractor coordinated with the City of Savannah’s Sewer Conveyance Department to perform the work during low flow hours. City personnel were able to further reduce flow by manually operating sanitary sewer pumping stations. To complete the tie-in, the contractor had to bypass pump the remaining sewer flow around the manholes where they were working. The contractor, McLendon Enterprises Inc., successfully completed this difficult stage of construction this week.
The last of the waterlines was also completed this past week. A final piece of 16” water main was bored from the future intersection of President Street and General McIntosh to the intersection of President Street and Randolph Street.
On General McIntosh, crews are installing the last of the utilities. Fill was added to the new roadway to match the final President Street elevation. Next, it will be time to add the rock base, curbing and finally pavement.
Orion’s crews have made great progress on the new bridge to span the future Bilbo Canal. Supporting concrete structures, called bents are completed for this phase of the bridge. The support for these bents consists of a row of pre-stressed concrete piles. The pre-stressed concrete piles were driven into the ground nearly 70’ in order to support the weight of the bridge. Once piles are set, bents are formed at the surface (on top of the piles) with plywood and reinforcing steel. Concrete is then purred into the form, making the bents. Orion had to complete this phase of the bridge while dealing with the high tide, which at times, had the potential to flood out the work area. With this complete, prefabricated concrete deck sections could be lowered into place.
Curb and gutter installation on General McIntosh.
Rock base on General McIntosh
Boring machine on President Street drilling the hole in preparation to pull a 16” PVC water main back through.
Prefabricated bridge decks set into place by crane and crew onto the bridge bents.
Crews and crane coordinating setting decks onto guide posts.