Bridging the gap

CORINTH - The prefabricated bridge arrived last week, after nearly four years of planning.

Volunteers, city and federal employees met, and met again, to determine what hikers and equestrians needed to cross a deep ravine on the Elm Fork Trail. Engineers drew pages of plans. Lawyers reviewed the terms. Local, state and federal officials approved the project.

A trucker left Wednesday from a construction yard in Bloomington, Minn., with the 60-foot-long, 10-foot-wide span. The load arrived in southern Corinth Friday, an early morning rendezvous set with several other big rigs, a crane, and a swarm of construction workers at the ready.

The bridge builder, Wheeler Consolidated, sent ahead a single page of installation instructions.

The choreography of men and machines began a little after 9 a.m. Friday when they anchored a mammoth crane on the hillside above Lewisville Lake. A city crew had already cleared a little brush on the empty lot, a bargain struck with the landowner to get as close as possible.

As the bridge waited on a 70-foot truck bed just up Oak Bluff Drive, men loaded a stack of counterweights on the crane. They affixed an I-beam and lifting straps to the hoist. They dispatched the first round of 18-wheelers - the ones that brought their pallets of counterweights, outrigger plates and lifting straps - back up the road.

Then, the 26,900-pound brown beauty of welded steel and composite decking rolled in beside the crane. Crews descended. After braces and straps and guiding ropes were attached, one man shouted, "Ready!"

The hoist extended nearly 200 feet. Onlookers - city employees, neighbors, trail enthusiasts - snapped photos.

At its highest point, swinging from truck bed to creek bed in just a few minutes, the bridge was suspended more than 125 feet in the air.

Descending toward the ravine, the bridge hovered above the abutments for several minutes as the crew settled the score over the last few inches.

The bridge is the last major structure needed for Corinth's trail system, according city employee Melissa Dolan.

It's the third prefab bridge that Chip Fisher, of Haslet-based 2L Construction, has helped set.

Do all bridges come with one page of installation instructions?

"Pretty much," Fisher said.

PEGGY HEINKEL-WOLFE can be reached at 940-566-6881. Her email address is pheinkel-wolfe@dentonrc.com .