Ward Bridge – Spirit Vision Films

Spirit Vision Films will begin filming and documenting the progress of the Ward Bridge Restoration project by local contractor Bruch and Bruch Construction of Port Angeles, Washington, starting on June 17th, 2019. They will be working for the Clallam County Road Department to restore this county bridge.

The contractor has asked that the road closure be pushed up to June 17th because of the time element involved in setting up the project’s in-water work and fish window permit that starts on July 15th through August 15th. This is a very short 30-day period to complete the repair of the supports that span the Dungeness River.

They will begin creating access roads on either side of bridge prior to doing the in-water work in July, giving them a head start when the fish window appears.

Spirit Vision Films will be on hand documenting the closure of the bridge through the opening of the repaired bridge, that will include fresh asphalt paving in late September.

We will give video updates throughout the repair as we did with the reconstruction of the McDonald Creek Bridge last year. You can see that project here https://vimeo.com/270272547.

Stay tuned!

Our newest client, the Clallam County Road Department is working hard on setting up a footing repair project on the old wooden Ward Bridge that runs across the Dungeness River on Woodcock Road this summer near Sequim, WA.

There are various construction, engineer, and consulting people involved to see this project gets accomplished within the short window that is allowed for working in a river that has several endangered fish species. So time management is essential to getting this project done quickly. Many of these folks live far from the North Olympic Peninsula.

The upstream channel will be diverted to the east side of the bridge, while a coffer dam is installed around the two western footings that support the bridge, creating a dry environment to work in. The repair crew then removes 8 to 10 feet of gravel around the footings and ‘armors’ them with large rock or what the industry calls rip rap. The gravel is then placed back on top of the large rock and the whole process is repeated for the eastern footings.

For the first time by Clallam County a UAV is being used to film the channel up and downstream to create a visual record to be sent to the various folks who are involved in the project. Because of the dense woods and underbrush on the banks of the Dungeness, it is extremely difficult to get to and actually see the best areas for a diversion. Our Phantom gives a bird’s eye view of the channel and the bridge with little effort.

I also flew the Phantom along the edge of the bridge to look under it where you can’t get to by foot, unless you have a wetsuit on! Close up video of the footings will also be sent along to be viewed by repair crew, engineers, etc., saving them the trip out to inspect the bridge first hand.

A few of the images below are from the shoot last Wednesday. Flagging was provided by the engineers of the road department and I was able to use the bridge deck as a take off and landing platform, while Pat and Dave stopped traffic momentarily. Jennifer from the environmental branch of the county was out with us to see what the Phantom could do firsthand as well.

One more way that UAV technology is being used effectively in inspection and survey. The images taken from the Phantom were actually frame shots taken from the video and not actual images captured by the still camera. Amazing detail for a video frame capture!