Huey P. Long Re-construction

Greetings From New Orleans ,
The widening or in my opinion , the re-construction of the Huey P. Long Bridge has finally entered into a new phase of work . Essentially and up till now the main focus of work has been the instalation of the new diagonal support structures for the new outside lanes on either side of the bridge . Now an underside trolly system is being installed ( painted bright yellow in the pictures ) for the purpose of moving both men and materials into location . Unfortunately , this presents a whole new set of issues for those of us that must navigate the river and must pass under this bridge . The problem is that this new trolly system now lowers the height of the bridge by approximately eight feet . Now you may ask or think how could that be a problem but the fact of the matter is that from the very onset of this work the Huey P. Long bridge , originally built back in the 30's , has always been the lowest bridge on the river between New Orleans and Baton Rouge . Before the beginning of this work there was approximately 153 feet of what is refered to as " Air Draft " or vertical clearence when the New Orleans , Carrollton River gage is at zero feet . Futhermore , many of the modern day ships that we now bring up the river are not only larger in size and diminsion but more importantly much taller as well . When I or for that matter any other NOBRA pilot go on board a ship regardless of its destnation , either north bound or south bound , one of the very first things that we check for during our " Master - Pilot Exchange ,is the ship's height or " Air Draft " inorder to insure that the ship may safely pass under this bridge . To futher compound this height issue is the fact that it has been determined that due to the additional weight that has been added to the piers of the bridge , the bridge has actually SUNKEN approximately three feet into the river botton . Also , no one knows for certain how much more the bridge will sink into the river bottom and it is of much more concern when the additional weight will be added . So now , at zero on the New Orleans , Carrollton River Gage , we now have approximately 150 feet and with the height of the new trolly system we now have only 142 feet of vertical clearence at zero feet on the New Orleans river gage . Today , the 15th. of August we have approximately 6.2 feet , so subract that from the 142 feet of bridge clearence , you have about 135.8 feet of clearence which actually leaves very little when you consider most ships that transit the bridge have upwards from 120' too 130' . Also , we have not been able to get a definate answer to how long this trolly system will be in place and until it is eventually removed the ships that are too tall will either have to go to another port or attempt to ballast down deep enough in order to pass under the bridge . Yes , its just another day at the office but it certainly brings on a whold new set of problems and issues to the table to deal with . I gues its just one of the things that keeps this job so interestin .
Smoothe sailing !
Ted Davisson