CLEVELAND – Five of nine spans of Cleveland’s old Innerbelt Bridge disappeared in seconds Saturday as the Ohio Department of Transportation did a controlled explosive demolition of the steel skeleton.
When the bridge opened along Interstate 90 in 1959 it was the widest bridge in Ohio, carrying four lanes in each direction, ODOT said. The bridge carried interstate traffic in both directions and was a classic steel “Pratt Deck Truss” with a cast-in-place concrete deck and steel parapets. It stood 128 feet tall, 116 feet wide and was 5,078 feet long.
The bridge was blown apart by a half-second blast of 182 pounds of explosives placed at 88 points along the bridge. The detonation sent more than 10 million pounds of steel crashing into the Cuyahoga River Valley below.
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Article and Picture Courtesy of WEWS NewsChannel 5
Video Courtesy of Cleveland Aerial Media and YouTube
