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Drama at San Francisco Bay Bridge during 4 day closure (REVISED)
The San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge reopened at 6:30am this morning (Tuesday) just a little late for the morning rush. The bridge was closed Thursday night Sep 3 at 8pm, and was due to reopen 5am Tuesday Sep 8 in a long planned transition of the double deck portion of the bridge's east span as part of its replacement with a new single deck span. However the closure was also an opportunity for intensive vehicle-free inspections and smaller planned repairs. There was also a planned fire rescue drill.
A 90m, 300ft temporary section of bridge was installed with cranes after removal
of a double deck section to allow a redirection of traffic during the remainder of construction of the new east span. The old east span is a doubledeck through truss. It will be replaced by a single deck cable stay span.
Saturday afternoon engineers doing inspections found a cracked eye-bar in one of the cables of the west suspension span.
They decided the best remedy was a new saddle.
Overnight work Saturday into Sunday
Stinger Welding in Coolidge Arizona was asked to make the new saddle on an emergency basis. Steel workers working over Saturday night into Sunday fabricated the saddle.
The large steel piece was flown on a chartered plane to Oakland Airport a few miles from the bridge site Sunday afternoon and taken by flatbed truck to the bridge. 
Setting the saddle piece in place was estimated to take about a day.
Then the tie rods had to be retensioned to rebalance loads.
Officials said the eyebar was last inspected in 2007 and appeared sound. It was one of eight, so when it failed its load was shifted to the other seven.
On Monday officials feared the unexpected work on the west span would delay the reopening to Wednesday 5am, but round-the-clock work by construction workers - on the Labor Day holiday and into the early hours of Tuesday - had the bridge ready for traffic again more or less as originally scheduled.
That was on the west span.
Reconstruction of the east span costing some $5b is due for completion in 2013.
Operated by the Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA), San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge is the second 
busiest toll bridge in the US, carrying an average 260k vehicles per day. It has ten travel lanes.
Only the George Washington Bridge in New York City is larger (14 lanes) and busier (290k).
There is live video of the work at the BATA website:
TOLLROADSnews 2009-09-07 UPDATES 2009-09-08 12:00
