WATERWAY BRIDGING UNIT TEST

 

WATERWAY BRIDGING UNIT TEST

Ongoing concerns about potential lengthy Portage Lake Lift Bridge closings, have brought many ideas forward about how to create alternative waterway crossings for emergency vehicles and necessary product delivery trucks. One proposal was to utilize the bridging units used by the Army National Guard Unit base at Sault Saint Marie, MI. To that end, a trial run was organized to see how feasible the system might be in an emergency. The temporary bridging system, called the Rapdily Emplaced Bridge System (REBS), was truck convoyed from the Soo to the Portage Coast Guard Base, in Dollar Bay on Friday, September 5th, and assembled on their dock platform, for deployment on Saturday. The day dawned quite windy, but clear, and shortly before noon, the assembled unit, powered by several inboard special water propulsion craft, traveled East to a ramp prepared at the Houghton National Park System docking area. This is the unit as it looked before taking on several different vehicles for its first run across to the Ripley Houghton County Marina for off loading, which was very successful, despite wind gusts at the Houghton County Airport of 34 mph.

Having returned to the Houghton side, and receiving a Kiwanis Chicken Barbeque lunch, they readied the unit for one more run across the Waterway. If you look at the center of the photo, in the highlighted area, one of two small sailboats operating in the Waterway, has overturned, dumping its two occupants into the water, who are now clinging to the overturned craft.

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