Page 186 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

CORE VALUE: CUSTOMER FIRST
who worked sixteen hours straight the first night. “We didn’t keep track of how many we worked on because we didn’t have time to write anything down. It was just blow and go.”
Visibility at night was tough even with construction lights stationed at regular intervals. “They blew out a lot of hydraulics because the operators kept banging into stuff,” recalls Harden. “They couldn’t see very well be- cause of all the glare and dust. Ferma had as many light towers as they could get their hands on, but it was still dark. And dust was flying everywhere.” Giant fans shot water out over the crumbling roadway to help manage the dust generated by 285,000 square feet of falling concrete. It felt like a continual downpour to Harden and his teammates. “We got pretty wet out there. We were running and things were falling. They were cutting those decks of freeway that fell thirty, forty feet to the ground. And they were hammering concrete to break it all up. And then shooting that heavy spray of water out to help settle the dust. It was chaos. That was a night.”
To watch the process was to witness a carefully choreographed affair with seven teams of six excavators each, spread out across the old highway, their long necks reaching out for another bite. “When it was done, you could see section after section of freeway slabs fallen onto each other,” recalls Harden. “It was like watching dominoes fall.” To Fer- ma’s credit, no one got hurt, thanks to all their careful planning. Not even a cut thumb. According to Caltrans District 4 Director Bi- jan Sartipi, “The demolition was an amazing feat of engineering. A fleet of forty excavators demolished 151 bridge spans and 307 columns to the cheers of those watching. It was a rare opportunity to be a part
Ferma had 60 excavators on the Doyle Drive contract to beat the clock on the time-sensitive job.
of history.”2
During the entire weekend, Peter- son’s field techs did shifts around the clock, one team working while the other slept a few miles away.
“Peterson took very good care of us while we were there,” says Harden. “You couldn’t park your service truck at the hotel so they brought us a pickup so we could rotate back and forth to the hotel while our service trucks stayed on-site. It was hard to sleep though because we were so amped up. We were all like zombies.”
In the end, Ferma’s strategy worked so well they finished ahead of schedule, enabling the general contractor to pave the temporary bypass and complete the job eight hours early. When the weekend was over, Harden and his teammates were still not finished. They spent several days breaking down all the equipment and loading it onto trucks to be hauled back home. “That deadline wasn’t nearly as stressful as getting the commuters back on the road, but by then we were just so tired and so done. Mentally and physically,” says Harden.
2 “Gate Keepers.” Construction & Demolition Recycling, Aug. 31, 2012. 184 | PETERSON: 85 YEARS AND GOING STRONG