Oregon seeks bids for demolition of dock that washed ashore after Japanese tsunami.
What is slightly more unusual (if not unique) however is for a fixed structure to be “imported” for demolition. And yet, by a strange quirk of time, tide and fate, is precisely the challenge facing Oregon state officials after a 132 tonne portion of a dock was swept ashore 15 months and 5,500 miles after it was ripped from the Japanese shore by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami of 11 March 2011.
The 66 feet long dock washed up on Agate Beach this week. Ad the state is now seeking bids – estimated to run to tens of thousands of dollars – to break up the largest piece of tsunami debris to hit North America.
. The dock broke free during the March 2011 tsunami in Japan.
“Everyone would prefer if possible that we salvage the dock and get it to someone who can put it to good use,” says David Solomon, safety and risk manager for the Oregon Parks and Recreation department. “But if there’s no way for contractors to salvage it in a cost-effective manner, they will have to look at demolishing it.”
That in itself is not an easy task, he noted. The dock is “not just a chunk of concrete,” he said. There’s a styrofoam core and the dock is made of pre-stressed concrete which incorporates cables or other steel pieces that are put under tension as concrete is poured over it, he said. Cutting into that and relieving that tension can be a dangerous operation.
Read more here.
