Turning disaster into opportunity, utility companies and other service providers are using the wholesale reconstruction of Lower Manhattan grids and networks to upgrade, modernize and rationalize their systems. Two electrical substations serving load in Lower Manhattan were destroyed by the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7, where they occupied the two bottom stories. On Sept. 11, their combined 407-Mw capacity was loaded about 75%. Two 138-kv feeder cables serving them also were lost. IMPROVED OUTLOOK Rana oversaw rapid restoration of electrical system. (Photo by Thomas F. Armistead for ENR) Restoring electric power became the top priority, says Louis Rana,
Last Sept. 11, construction industry companies rushed equipment, workers and management to the stricken World Trade Center complex with barely a thought to permits, schedules, risk or compensation. Their resources were desperately needed and they responded without hesitation. A year later, the impact of that rapid response is sinking in, as firms and government officials endure the painstaking–and to some, painfully slow–process of cost recovery. But the Ground Zero ordeal has also provided valuable lessons for future "first responders" and is proving a marketing boon as well. This summer, New York City officials turned over control of the former World
Most workers and volunteers at Ground Zero have long returned to their old jobs or taken new assignments far from the once-devastated site. But the issue of potential health risks for as many as 30,000 participants, in construction and other sectors, could stay with them. The impact of exposure to site contaminants is only now being felt as worker screening expands, providing new data on collective symptoms and possibly new fuel for litigation. (Photo by Debra K. Rubin for ENR) In July, the Center for Occupational & Environmental Medicine at New York City's Mount Sinai Medical Center launched a $12-million
Send in the Marines. That battle order usually is given when beachheads need securing during combat. Ceremonially following that tradition, a Marine Corps unit was the first to occupy rebuilt offices in a section of the Pentagon destroyed on Sept. 11. Less than one year after the terrorist attack, construction teams defied expectations and met their psychological and physical goal: to have workers reoccupy the damaged section of the Dept of Defense headquarters by the one-year anniversary. In less than 11 months, workers demolished and rebuilt the most severely damaged section, about 400,000 sq ft that they dubbed the Phoenix
At its heart, the Pentagon is just an office building, although it is the world's largest at 6.5 million sq ft. But in the hearts of the American people, it is much more–a symbol of the might of the U.S. military. The structure's symbolism is so strong and enduring that the U.S. Dept. of Defense often is referred to by the name of the building its workers occupy. Click here to view picture gallery >> On Sept. 11, 2001, after others hit the World Trade Center in New York City, a handful of Islamic terrorists hijacked a plane with 64
TOUGH TERRAIN Concrete viaducts span mountain valleys but slope stabilization and reinforcement has been difficult. (Photo by John J. Kosowatz for ENR) For centuries, Croatia's geographic location as a flash point between East and West has made the small Balkan country a battlefield. Culturally tied to the West and often dominated by the East, independent Croatia is looking in both directions to tap its undeveloped coastline and a lucrative tourist industry that could fuel its struggling economy. The first step is to speed access to the coast through an ambitious multibillion-dollar motorway that will replace a snake's tail of narrow,
The past year and a half have been a frightening ride for international contractors. The terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., and the uncertainty over the U.S. response only compounded existing concerns about a softening U.S. economy and the effects on the international market. For ENR's Top 225 International Contractors, 2001 was a down year. International revenue for the Top 225 fell 8.1% to $106.5 billion from $115.9 billion in 2000 and 11.5% from 1999's high of $118.7 billion. Part of this drop-off can be explained by the absence of German giant Philipp Holzmann AG, which now
SCREENING FOR THE FUTURE Airports such as Oakland's have time to incorporate baggage screening requirements into expansion planning. (Photo courtesy of the Port of Oakland) At Boston's Logan Airport, crews are driving some 170 piles to a depth of up to 130 ft and ordering steel beams for 90,000 sq ft of additional space to the existing terminal in a $106-million project. This would not be an unusual job for an airport undergoing a $4.4-billion modernization program except that this particular project might not have happened if not for Sept. 11. The airport earlier this month also received a record
Estimating is a complex, high-risk, individualized mixture of art and science, which makes the choice of the tools an estimator uses quite a personal thing. So it is really no surprise to find that four decades of digital evolution have led estimators to a limited automation of old practices, the acceptance of few new tools and stubborn resistance to the adoption of new ways. The loudest debate at present has been going on for decades. It involves the fundamental choice of whether to start with a generic spreadsheet or use specialized estimating software. Some estimators prefer to mix their own
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