PITTSBURGH — Channel 11’s 360 camera was placed in the blast zone of the old Commercial Street Bridge to give viewers the best angles of the implosion.
You can see the moment the explosives are detonated before the bridge drops to the ground in a plume of brown debris. A cloud of smoke then roars toward the camera, completely obscuring the view. When the dust finally settles, a brown film is left behind on everything in its path.
“It looks like a bomb went off down there,” Jason Zang, the District Executive for PennDOT District 11, tells Channel 11.
Zang said crews have already started to clean up pieces of the bridge.
“They’re going gangbuster down there already,” Zang adds.
PennDOT says the first step is to clear enough debris to allow equipment in and out so crews can access the new bridge. They expect that to take two or three days.
Drone 11 shows just how much work there is to do. Large chunks of concrete and rebar are left behind. Crews say they won’t finish the cleanup until the new bridge is in place and the Parkway East reopens to anxiously awaiting drivers.
As for all that concrete and rebar - there’s a plan for that.
“The concrete debris is being hauled to the Oakmont area where it will be crushed and recycled,” PennDOT tells Channel 11. “And all the rebar ... that will be sent out to a scrapyard to be recycled.”
While the Parkway East is closed, PennDOT says it will take advantage of paving inside the Squirrel Hill Tunnels.
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