Historical Marker - The Concrete Poureth!!

I love to find little historical markers.  Little (or big) plaques that have been put in place to mark a historic event.  Seattle seems to have them all over the place.  Some in the most unnoticed of places.  My favorite  is a marker down by the port of Seattle sitting by a little used sidewalk hidden among the weeds.  It is a plaque celebrating the first full service auto station that sat on that site in 1907.

 I try to imagine what this road was like in 1907.  An elevated road on the outskirts of town, sitting atop of a mound of dirt to keep it out of the tide flats.  The building itself was probably sitting on piles over the fluctuating tide water and raw sewage.  Now it's a road at least a 1/4 mile from the water, filled in over the years.  Instead of the escape route out of town that it once was, it's now an industrial artery for semi-trucks hauling containers in and out of the harbor.  There are other such markers on my bike route to work marking "maritime" history where there is no longer water or shoreline.

This marks the shipyard that built the USS Nebraska.
Nowhere near the water!

Things shift and move, whether by humans or nature, they move.  We leave behind a marker with a plaque to commemorate some event.  Nature leaves it's own markers like a huge boulder sitting in the middle of a field miles from the mountains, glacial silt under the layers of dirt or some frightening remains of an ancient settlement that was buried under 200' of mud.  Humans are so temporary.  But we try to make a permanent presence. Concrete has certainly helped that.





I have been watching the deconstruction of an old stretch of highway through downtown Seattle.  They are prepping the area to dig a tunnel for the new highway.  It's been an incredible process to see. First to watch the old one come down.  A structure, that when built in the 1950's was considered "state of the art"  Now only 60 years old is worn and outdated.  It also sits on top of what was an old tide flat so in the last earthquake it really took a hit.  They tore down part of it in record time and now it sits as a mountain of gravel that they are using again in the construction of the new highway.  What's incredible is what they are digging up out of that old tide flat area.  Used for years as a dump by a developing town and eventually a city.  You thought I found some incredible things in my backyard, the state has a team of volunteers sifting through the muck they dig up looking for long ago buried trash, now becoming museum artifacts.  Will they look at our garbage the same way in 100 years?  Or  maybe they will  they  be mining our landfills for depleted resources?

One of the drilling machines.  behind is the
viaduct being torn down

Back to the concrete... There is tons of it going into the construction of this tunnel.  In order to start digging the tunnel they are drilling a series of 5' wide holes down about 100' then lowering a tower of rebar into the hole and pumping it full of concrete. Each one of these columns of concrete are placed side by side creating a concrete box in the deep field of mud. There they can then dig out the inner part of the box and eventually lower in the tunnel boring machine the size of one of the ferries that travels from Seattle to one of the many islands.  Most of those ferries can hold up to 200 cars.

Hard to see, but those are 5' wide 100 ' long columns of rebar.

 This concrete box is meant to hold back the tide flat, mud and the waters of the Puget Sound within a seismically active area. We  humans believe that concrete is forever.  And perhaps it is within the time frame of our "forever".  The Hoover Dam still holds back water.  The footings of the Empire State Building still hold that tall structure up and Chernoble's radioactive core is "forever" entombed on a block of solid concrete.  My hope is that the same faith that was put behind the power of that concrete will give the new life needed to my little garage.

My lively passenger

Keith at the kitchen footing form

So I was back at it again.  I borrowed the truck I needed with a towing capacity of 2500 lbs. I went to Handy Andy and got me a yard of concrete to go. I can't tell you how much fun it is to cruise down the highway doing 50+mph with a live, uncovered load of concrete sloshing around behind you.  Take the turns easy and pray for no sudden stops!  Luckily I had my campadre Keith for moral support as I heaved the lively load up and over the West Seattle Bridge and on over to my little construction site.  The only real scare came from working my way up the rather steep hill of my alley.  But no concrete was lost.  We had to work fast as I only had the hopper that the concrete came in for 2 hours.  With two wheel barrels on hand Keith and I humped the first yard into place.  That was specifically for the footing for the eventual kitchen remodel.  I was pretty amazed at how long it takes to wheel in a yard of concrete.  I feel it took us 30 trips from the alley to the form to fill it.  That was enough to stretch my arms out about 3" and wipe us out for the day.

 My second day of concrete I was not fortunate to have Keith's help.  Luckily this load was only 3/4 of a yard.  Little lighter, a little less to pour but no less painful on my back.  I did get the help of Danny the 8 year old boy who lives next door.  He was extremely helpful at keeping the cement mixed and then hosing out the hopper.

Finished Footing North Side

 
I have one more pour to finish the footings under the garage.  Soon the footing will be one with rock that sits under the earth by my garage.  Rock connected to concrete.  Nature's marker of some natural event connecting it to my modern day event.  This time I leave behind my own historical marker.