What’s That Barge Off I-90 Doing?

It’s the WSDOT removing and replacing “30 frayed and corroded anchor cables that hold the bridges in place on Lake Washington during windstorms.”

Cable cross section. Thanks Mike Murphy and Flickr.

Here’s the cool part:

“Unlike a typical road project, much of the work to replace anchor cables will be out of the public eye. Specially-trained commercial deep-sea divers will haul the cables as deep as 200 feet, remove the old cables and attach the new ones. A barge will be standing by with an on-board decompression chamber to treat divers after they resurface. Once each new cable is connected to its anchor on the lake bed, workers can fasten them to the floating bridge pontoons. Each cable takes about a day to replace.” From Mike Murphy at WSDOT.

Specially trained divers! On-board decompression chambers! Barge standing by!  THAT’S SO COOL.

Opening the hatch. Flickr.

Frayed cable. Flickr.

Keep an eye out as you drive over I-90 for divers surfacing from the deep.