I35W bridge: C.C. Myers possible player

I mentioned C.C. Myers earlier with regard to the 17 day California bridge repair. Turns out his company is a possible player in the I35W bridge replacement.

Rebuilding bridge will be hard, fast

Excerpt:

"It's a major highway there -- I think it needs to be fast-tracked," said C.C. Myers, who runs a construction firm in California with a reputation for quick-turn projects after earthquakes and other disasters. "They've got to get it back open for traffic. It's a helluva inconvenience."

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"[After] you come up with the foundation, you could be under construction in a couple weeks," Myers said. "And once you get the thing going, you build it as you are completing your design. All you have to know is what the hell you are going to build."

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Myers agrees: "It's just a matter of putting the right team together and really just having the right attitude and the right people."

When a tanker truck crashed and burned on I-80 near Oakland, Calif., in April, melting the steel frame supporting the access ramp above it, Myers went right to work.

The day he was awarded the contract, he ordered steel from Pennsylvania and soon built sections of the new ramp off site. With crews on the job 24 hours a day, the ramp opened in 26 days, half the time expected. Although he bid $876,000 for the job and spent an estimated $2.5 million to build the ramp, his quick work earned a $5 million bonus.

"To do something like that you've got to have your [act] together," he said. "It takes everybody. All your subcontractors and suppliers and all that. You have to have the same goal and say, 'Let's show 'em how damn fast we can do this job.' If you don't have that attitude, you're not going to get it done."

Comment: I'm skeptical that "fast tracking" is the way to go with a project this sized! C.C. Myers, Inc.