Hawthorne 9A s, Truck hits bridge

[Guest lad56der]

IFO County police, On scene Mark's towing, mount pleasant police, NYS DOT, Ortiz welding

Edited January 8, 2010 by lad56der

[99subi 121]

was on its way to the new uv line

[helicopper 1,050]

I guess the escort vehicle should re-calibrate it's tape measure!!!

[99subi 121]

haha thats for sure. i followed one a few weeks back, and man it sure was close.

[gss131 212]

Uh,guys take the rest of the week off.That tee you ordered is gonna be a little late.

[BedfordFire 7]

Although not knowing the circumstances following this truck and its load, it seems like this accident could have been avoided - its my understanding that oversized loads like this require permits, escorts, and planning before they're moved? If thats the case, the bridge height should have been accounted for....

[x635 4,066]

How did they go about removing it?

[jack10562 414]

I guess they forgot to account for heavy frost-heave raising the road bed a couple of inches...among other things...

[Guest lad56der]

We pulled it about 10 feet with the hevey wrecker, then it wouldnt go anymore. So we had ortiz welding cut a 4 inch by 8 inch peice off the top so it could free up and back out from under the bridge. the low-boy trailer it was on dug into the ground so that made it a lil worse.

[x635 4,066]

I wonder what the approximate weight was?

If they had pulled out the lowboy from behind and pulled the tractor foward, and used two 75-ton rotators to rotate it and pull it out, I wonder if the welding would have been neccesary. How long did it take to cut through that thick steel?

[helicopper 1,050]

Although not knowing the circumstances following this truck and its load, it seems like this accident could have been avoided - its my understanding that oversized loads like this require permits, escorts, and planning before they're moved? If thats the case, the bridge height should have been accounted for....

It was a scheduled trip with permits, escorts, etc. so the explanation may lie is something like adverse weather as Jack mentioned or a change in something after the planning was done (different truck, placed on the truck differently, etc.). They've been hauling these things in to Grasslands for a while and they never had a problem before.

[Guest lad56der]

There is no need to have 2 rotators for this job. The heavy wrecker pulled it as much as it could with out damaging the bridge. So we had Mark Ortiz from Ortiz Welding come out and cut the 5 inch by 12 inch peice off the top that was still hung up on the bridge. Mark Ortiz cut the steel that was a little more then a inch thick in 15 min, so it gave the truck enough space to back out with out anything happening to the bridge, but a couple of scuff marks.

Edited January 9, 2010 by lad56der

[MoFire390 118]

did yall try letting the air out of the back 4 tires on the tractor and all the tires on the lowboy???

[Guest lad56der]

we dropped the airbags and let some air out of the tires but it didn't make a difference.

Edited January 9, 2010 by lad56der

[x635 4,066]

BTW, Thanks for sharing the photo and info.

[MoFire390 118]

we dropped the airbags and let some air out of the tires but it didn't make a difference.

hmmm...must of had alot of people scratching their heads..i know i would have been..but nice photos and thanks for sharing