Bill Cunningham, the Great America Welcome Wednesday after him and the christ did I guess there was one hundred and fifteen million Americans traveling about half listening to our dulca tones this Wednesday afternoon. Thither and pro and the weather's coming may have on later Steve Rawley to talk about
what's going to happen tonight and tomorrow. But until then, there was a big news conference this morning about about ten am a couple hours ago, and of course Brian Hamrick of the Power of Five was there asking most of the questions and Brian Hamrick welcome again to the Bill Cunningham showing Brian, how are you?
I'm good? Thanks again, mister Cunningham.
Can you give the American people, first of all, set the scene?
Where was it? Who was there? What were their parameters if any?
Well, yeah, they had These were the spokespersons for OH Dot. It was Matt Bruening and Kathleen Fuller. It was at their headquarters up in Lebanon, so that's where they did this today. That's the kind of odd. It almost looks like green glass building up there. So they just wanted to try and give an update on when the timeline, and that's what everybody the real main question is when is this thing going to reopen? And so they told us today that their crystal ball says they can have
this thing open by early March. So a lot of that depended on the materials. That's what they were really waiting to know. Apparently the way this bridge was built, you know, despite interchangeable parts being discovered, you know, a couple of centuries ago, we didn't do that with this bridge. In the nineteen seventies when they built it. They built this thing, it was everything was custom on it. So
now the parts that are damage are also customed. So now they've got to go back and you know, to the nineteen seventies and refit and remake all these custom pieces. And that's what they didn't know. How long would it take to get those They're saying those should be delivered in January. The demolition will be done by then. It starts tomorrow and they'll be ready to start rebuilding in
in January. Now, they did say there are a couple of factors, you know, you know, there could still be you know, problems with you know, construction when it goes up in the Big Wog card is the weather. So if the weather cooperates and everything, and they do have some downtime planned in this March reopening, but they think they can get it done by then. But they also left the caveat that it could be you know, could
be a little longer. But that's the best kind of rough estimate that they have right now.
Brian hemric I watched some of the news conference and a question was asked, maybe by you, how come this isn't like the Prince Spence Bridge. The fire there took place in twenty twenty, there was a collision on the bridge.
All hell broke loose.
It took six weeks from the accident until reopening the BS Bridge.
Why is this taking many months?
Yeah, Well, part of it is what they said is because those two far things had they had two things in common, fire and it was a bridge, and they said other than that, there was nothing that was similar. Again, the biggest part of this is trying to get these custom made steel beams. Here's the other thing. They're in competition. You know, all those major floods down in Tennessee and
North Carolina, they're still rebuilding everything down there. They're in competition with that region for the resources for this steel and that sort of thing, right and the people that make this. So there's sort of a backlog right now, and a lot of it because of the floods. You know, we don't usually get into where we think about, well, that happened in a different part of the country and that was months ago. We're still rebuilding. So that's part
of the effort here. And then again the idea that these pieces are not something you can just you know, order up and they come to you like you're you know, getting the Bengals jersey off of Amazon. It's going to take some time to get these things manufactured.
And part of what Kathleen said was there are seven beams that are four hundred and fifty feet long, seven specially designed curve properly beams, and there's thousands. Didn't there's thousands of steel plates. Explain that to Tony Benner because he's all pissed off about going back and forth to Boone County as you are.
So we got.
Thousands of steel plates, We got seven four and fifty foot long beams.
This is unbelievable.
Yeah, yeah, well it is. That's the part. I mean, this was a very destructive fire. In fact, they said, you know that there was a serious danger of collapse when this thing, you know, in the early part of it, they got the shoring towers up. When I asked them, could it still collapse, they couldn't give you one hundred percent that it wouldn't, you know, So they think that
they've mitigated that danger right now. But you know, the way they put it was anything's possible, but we think we have it, you know, under control, that that's not going to happen with those multiple shoring towers that they have under here. But this was a very destructive fire. And the Lynx the way they explained that as there were seven beams, there's more than five hundred and fifty two feet of steel beam, like those giant steel beams that have to be replaced in this thing. So it's
a lot of steel, it's a lot of material. And that doesn't count all those plates that they have to do. And it also doesn't count the demolition. There's a two hundred and twenty four page document just to tell how to take the concrete up on this thing. I'm like, this gotta be the war and piece of U Concrete bridge demolition two hundred and twenty four pages. You know,
I don't think I've read a novel that long. I don't really read when the ones with pictures are really the only ones I read those, so I got doesn't count.
Yeah, but so, so you're saying, forget about the steel beams, the thousands of connecting plates. There's totally twenty four pages with diagrams and schematics how to properly remove the concrete which is about eight inches thick on top of the bridge.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, Yeah. Yeah, it's two hundred and twenty four pages of how to just do the demolition project on the concrete alone. That didn't count the steel or anything. Uh, that's just how to do the concrete. So and that's they have that now, because that's one of the first things they're going to have to do. They start with that tomorrow or rather Friday, they will start with the Yeah, well, what.
About the northbound lanes.
I find myself every now and then in Northern Kentucky. I love to go in there, meeting Rob Sanders and meeting other lawyers in Northern Kentucky, and then I come back on four to seventy one north. There's only one lane that's blocked. Am I When I was on four seventy one coming north on the Big Mac Bridge, I had the thought of my mind, is this going to collapse? Is there any any way that the other northbound lanes are affected by all the work now to be done on the southbound?
Well they said they've had the bridge inspectors out there and they've looked at all that, and they're really the real dammy. The only real damage was to the was to the the other bridge, the south brown part of this destructure. They're they're confensed that the other parts. Say so, there's been really no talk of that since the early you know, when they shut that down initially.
You know, I talked to Dean Gregory at the Boathouse Montgomery Boat at Montgomery and Boathouse. They're not happy at all. And I can't imagine but all the businesses and residences over there, this has caused total havoc and confusion. As far as the cost of this thing, I think you asked that question or someone.
Did, Yeah, I get yeah, And do they have a budget to do this?
Well, here's the way it works for today. They don't know how much it's going to cost. They just said into the millions. We don't know. They did address this though, they said that what they hope to do, Odog's going to put the bill to begin with. And then they said, because the governor has declared this an emergency, that they will be able to apply for some federal funds to
hopefully get reimburshed. But right now it's going to go to odots, so you know, but it's going to be who knows how many millions millions of dollars this is going to cost.
On the issue of the cause and the placement of the place set there, it was either a Channel five or nine. Had the old Cincinnati Recreation Commissioned chairman on as an old guy, had to be in his seventies, and he was saying, why did you put it there? And he said, well, it was shaded, and if it was wet, you know, it was better, and it was kind of out of the way at the time, and et cetera. And recycle tires, you know, if those things burned,
they burned forever. By the way, recycled plastic the same thing. But he said, I'm pretty sure. He said, we passed it through state officials and it wasn't on the list of prohibited items.
Did that come up at all?
Yeah, well, they did say that they looked at this. You know, they got a note from the Federal Highway Administration a few years ago, and it's been an ongoing concern because they've had fires. They had one in Los Angeles that burned up a bridge there because they had things stored underneath of it, and we're talking about like palettes and two being and out in californ it was like they had cars and junk, look like people have
been living there and all kinds of stuff. And then they had another one that Atlanta, and it was very similar, things piled right to the roof. And so when they got this notice from the Federal Highway Administration that said, hey, look for things like this, take those things out, they said they didn't find them things like that. They found the tractor they showed us. They found some palletts. It was stuck, you know, stacked up almost to the top of one. So they found some of that and they
removed it. But they saw this and no, it didn't raise a red flag. Nobody brought it up. They said nobody. They said it didn't. They said, didn't Somebody just say, hey, this is more material. And I asked them specifically, this, this looks like more material than the stuff that you did remove. Didn't that, you know, trigger a red flag in anyone's mind. And the nature was no, they couldn't find anything that this might be a problem, so they didn't remove it.
It's for those who may not know, this was a large replica steamboat, a eighty A compliant made of recycled plastic, and underneath that was a flooring of recycled tires. And if you've ever I know Tony Benner used to be in the recycled tire business. If you start a tire fire somewhere in Boone County, that damn thing will burn for months because all tire is is oil.
Products, that's all it is.
And so this facility had fifty by one hundred feet of four inch deep recycled rubber, recycled tires so that if some kid fell down, he didn't scrape his knee. And so this was a disaster waiting to happen if a homeless guy had a started a fire there on a cold, rainy night underneath the bridge. But no one in government said, boy, that could be a problem because it wasn't on the list.
Yeah, no, it wasn't on the list. And I think they hit you know, it was just it was disguised as a as a harmless you know basically, and you know, I think we we tend to see things instead of seeing it as a problem. A stack PIWO number. They thought it as a toy, and and it didn't. It's how didn't you know it's it's a This was like a trojan horse. It didn't rattle any alarms that it should have.
Really done well as far as go ahead, I find.
One thing really interesting about this though. Rubber uh and uh a plastic it burns it like two thousand degrees. The wood burns that at like a thousand degrees, But it takes twenty six hundred degrees to melt steel. So you would think, even if you did the math on it, you go, well, this can't melt steel, for crying out loud, it's it's plastic, and plastic only gets to two thousand degrees.
You need significant more heat to do that. But the way this worked, firefighter re Flame with his theory on it, and it was this that when that fire was underneath of that bridge, that it would it held the heat there, and it worked almost like it works in a flash over the smoke gets so hot that it actually burns the unburned particles in smoke and it becomes much hotter, and then that continues to roll under there like the confection of them, basically, And that's what heated this. I mean,
this is all theory, right. Nobody said this officially, but that's that's what I believe. Probably heated this beyond what the temperatures could be that would actually melt seal, and it did it for hours that or however long that fire lasted, so you have time plus this super heated material because it had nowhere to escape underneath of that bridge. And I found that fascinating. How something that couldn't burn hot enough to burn seal could burn hot enough to burn steel.
Do we know who did it? Is there anything?
Of course, I've got cops sending me Texas saying it was homeless encampment, and that's somebody. I hope someone didn't intentionally do this. It was someone with a campfire at night, which you see up and down the river all the time. Any indication about that criminal investigation, it's criminal, I mean this is one hundred millions of dollars.
Any indication who did it.
At this point, it's going to be up to the fire department to come up with it, and they haven't given anything official. But right now, you know, we've heard all these rumors that social media just stirring up all that, but there's no way to know at this point, you know, exactly what happened. I've you know, heard from people on the inside saying, we know it's just exactly you know, this is what's going to happen and all that, but but so far there's been nothing official to tell us.
Yeah that they you know, here's the evidence of what actually happened. Until we get that. I mean, I can think of several scenarios that wouldn't involve, you know, someone like that. I mean, look, there could be somebody went down there and said, hey, let's see what it looks like if this thing went up and set it on fire. That's a possibility. It could be somebody who was there got cold that night. Maybe they were staying down there and they're huddled up and they're like, oh man, some
of this rubber makes a good fire. Next thing, you know, get out of control. And the whole thing burns down. That's a possibility. There's a pausibility there was power going through here. What if there was a spark underneath some of that rubber mat and you know it somehow malfunctioned, And so there's other possibilities to be ruled out. And only the fire investigators who are down in there nowhere it started. You can't see what was there and all
that are going to be able to tell us. So really, anything you see beyond that, I mean, I think there's you know, some of them have much higher possibilities than others. You know, I don't think there's a real good possibility that some electrical thing started because there was electricity down there, but I think it's unlikely. I think some of those other scenarios are much more possible. But until we get that though, it's it's sheer speculation.
It's kind of like the failure of imagination. Much like nine to eleven, nobody could imagine, and here you got state it's a possible. This large replica steamboat sitting on recycled rubber mats. What happens if someone starts a fire there? Look up there? Failure of imagination? Brian Hamrick, you and yours have a great Thanksgiving. I know, between you and John London and Karen Johnson, somebody's got to work tomorrow, understand, it's you, So enjoy your turkey on Friday.
Yes, yeah, no, I'll be here. I'll be here on Thanksgiving. We're yeah, we've already I've already got a great story for tomorrow kind of lined up and set out. So yeah, so I'm gonna be here tomorrow and h and we'll be We'll bring you the news just like we do every day.
I'll tell you what. Brian Hamrick, you're a great American. Thanks for reporting this to the American people. And Brian Hamrick, you continue to have a great career, a great day and a great Turkey.
Thanks again, mister Cunningham.
Brian Hamrick of the power of five, the best there is mus continue with more and no one could imagine this occurring, and it did. Now all hell's breaking loose and we cover the chaos and confusion well on News Radio seven hundred WLW.