Monday, July 04, 2005

Dr. Bob: another post about the Tacoma Narrows Bridge under construction

Another really fine chapter in an excellent cyber-scrapbook. Pictures are fine. Makes you glad that somebody else is doing the reporting. Really glad.

At this point, several members of our party gracefully bow out–this is an interesting tour, to be sure, but walking out on a narrow catwalk 200 feet above the water–much less heading up the tower–has made several of the folks a bit squeamish. The catwalk is built underneath the existing roadway, on the bottom of the structural frame which supports it. It has a rather solid feel–as it rests on steel girders–but there is a 36 inch railing made of construction webbing and 2 by 4’s separating you from a horrible death, screaming in terror and clawing the air, as you fall for seemingly endless seconds to a crushing impact in the frigid waters and wild currents of the Sound, where octopuses dine on your bloated flesh and rescue boats circle hopelessly above … oops! Get a grip! I’ve let my imagination run away from me again. Focus … breathe …. Aaah, there, that’s better. Needless to say, the first looks over that railing are a bit–how you say?–anxiety-provoking.

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