November 2010

There's No Place like Home
by an Inspector, Infrastructure Engineers, Inc.

Prior to being assigned travel to jobs, we are often given the option of volunteering first. I had such a luxury recently, and volunteered to venture to Kansas for a week while doing reconnaissance work for off-system fracture critical bridges. In preparation for this great adventure, I spent some time reviewing fracture critical bridge elements, snake bite treatments, and watching the Wizard of Oz (to avoid the tornadoes and witches).

During a great stroke of brilliance, we asked for the red-eye flight to Kansas City, so that we could get some work done on our first day there. After my alarm went off at 2:30 AM, I was out of the bed and on my way to the land of Dorothy and Toto. Eight hours, two flights, and five states later, we were cruising down I-70 and into Junction City, Kansas, which would become “base camp” for the duration of our trip.

With dirt roads that dead-end sporadically into cornfields, the GPS would do us no good, and we were forced to depend on an archaic form of navigation—MAPS!  While in Junction City, we reviewed our county maps, which had no road names, only numbers that we would later find are only posted sporadically along the routes. Thankfully, some earlier travelers from the company wrote the local road names onto the maps, keeping us from getting completely lost a single time during our trip.

If a job is to be completed on schedule and under budget, proper planning is essential. It is important to consider travel and inspection times, possible delays, and contingency plans in the case of inclement weather or other conditions. The first step in this process is to plan a travel route that minimizes times between sites. We planned to work in a pattern around each county to complete each one independently in order that no structure was left behind. While it may have been more efficient to skip between counties, the cost associated with missing one structure, and having to backtrack through a county was too great to risk. Prior to leaving “base camp,” we determined the most efficient route between structures in a county for the day. In doing so, we took great care to read the maps properly as they had different line types for a road based on the condition of upkeep that it was kept in. For instance, the darkest line type was for a paved road. Whereas the lightest line type simply marked where the road would be if it were maintained; when in actuality it was minimally maintained, and in some cases impassable. Needless to say, we did our best to avoid the minimally maintained sections of roadway while planning my routes.

The second step in the process was to complete field work in the most efficient manner. On this job, we collected measurements of the structure, and took photos of the top and bottom of the structure. With an independent form to fill out for every structure, it was easy to ensure that we collected all of the required data; therefore, we just had to come up with the most efficient order to complete the tasks in the shortest possible timeframe. This required adjustments on the fly and trying different sequences at the first few bridges until we found the fastest method. In the end, we found that clustering tasks by location and by which tools were required was the most efficient manner. Once the process was refined, our efficiency increased greatly.

The final step to any process is to always have a contingency plan. Since most of the structures were located on dirt roads, we had to have a backup plan in the event of rain or flashfloods. To compensate for this, we familiarized ourselves with the geography and location of the counties in relation to one another prior to embarking on the trip. This allowed us to monitor the weather over the radio, and make adjustments as necessary; which paid off when the music on the radio yielded to warnings from the National Weather Service of severe thunderstorms developing and moving rapidly through the area, which could cause flash flooding. With our knowledge of the area, we were able to shift our work to a different county that was less affected by the localized flooding.

Through proper planning, making adjustments to be more efficient, and pre-determined contingency plans, we were able to finish the reconnaissance work ahead of the original schedule, proving once again the value of solid planning and preparation. With the work wrapped up, I clicked my steel-toed boots three times and headed back home.