That's because it's really *small*
"Workers have poked the soil in six locations in front of the stranded tunneling machine Bertha, but their probes haven’t bumped into any huge obstructions yet, a senior engineer said Monday.
Those results increase the mystery over what might be blocking the world’s biggest tunnel machine. Project leaders initially speculated that an unusually wide boulder, deposited by ancient glaciers, might be in the way.
Progress on the Highway 99 tube has stalled since Dec. 6, when the rotary cutting blades of the 54.3-foot-diameter drill spun without scouring much sediment between Pioneer Square and Elliott Bay.
The probe holes are being drilled 110 feet deep and spaced five feet apart, from east to west. A hole-digging rig was out Monday morning to take another poke, and more test holes will be drilled Tuesday.
“We’re not hitting anything unexpected,” said Dave Sowers, tunnel-engineering manager for the state Department of Transportation. If a school-bus-size boulder were there, he said, the probes should strike it.
Meanwhile, contractor team Seattle Tunnel Partners intends to send workers into Bertha’s flooded front end Thursday to inspect for the blockage through gaps in the cutting head, Sowers said. Many crew members were gone on holiday, so contractors chose to wait for their return before starting the inspection, he said.
The tunnel team hopes to remove enough groundwater so the inspection can be done at normal air pressure. Ten wells have been installed around the buried machine to extract the silty water that permeates this stretch of the route."
Endangered Snail Darter.
It’s the curse of Chief Seattle.
Trivia alert. Seattle is the source of the original term, “Skid Row”. It was the path where the logs were skidded from the outlying areas to the mills on the water. It turned into a great place for the girls and saloons to ply their wares.
Some self-appointed genius tripped over the extension cord.
Time for some explosives!
http://www.utec-corp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/explosives-testing.jpg
>> Lots Of Poking But No Answers
From the headline I figured this would be a Billy Jeff Clintoon, Monica Lewinsky, “depends on the meaning of is”, cigar chewing thread.
But, no.
That's because it's really *small*
True heavy equipment story:
The contractor rented and brought in a huge crane to lift huge box beams onto bridge columns. After putting out the outriggers, getting the right counterweights attached, etc, they couldn’t get it to lift the beams.
The crane operator got out the instruction manual (it was really thick) and started going through it. No luck. They called the place they rented it from. The rental place sent out their guy, who also couldn’t get it to work. Then they called the west coast importer of the equipment. The local guys followed the instructions on the phone and still couldn’t get it to work.
Finally, they called the manufacturer in China. The local guys started going over the steps with the guy on the phone. They got to one step, turned the page, and started on the next step. They guy on the phone said, “No, that is not the next step. You need to do ......” The local guys said, that is not what it says here. The guy on the phone says, “What you are doing it two pages ahead. Turn back a page.” The local guys played with the instruction book a bit and found that two pages had stuck together. They very carefully pulled the pages apart and followed the instructions. It worked perfectly and lifted the beams beautifully.
The delay due to two pages being stuck together cost about 8 hours for about three-dozen guys.
Isn’t this how horror movies start out?