Employees with Posen Construction Co., the main contractor on the All-America or Y-Bridge project, realized that seven fence posts were missing from the yard where they were storing materials below the bridge.
They found the posts at a nearby scrap yard. A man had sold them a half-hour earlier for $58.30. The posts would have cost at least $5,000 to replace.
The man had to provide his driver’s license to sell the posts.
Rick Russel, vice president of Future Fence, the company that made and installed the fence added to the bridge, said whether the company should prosecute “is still under review.”
This is one of several unusual incidents that have happened during the bridge project, which began in March 2010.
Here are a few others:
Barrel trouble
Police caught a teenager who had thrown more than 15 orange barrels from the construction site off the bridge.
“I gave the kid the choice to pick up the barrels or go to juvy,” said John Devereaux, a superintendent for Posen Construction. “He wouldn’t pick them up and got a trip to DH (detention home).”
The teen admitted chucking the barrels, Devereaux said.
Joy ride
Someone stole a Posen employee’s pickup truck from the job site. The thief drove it around town until it ran out of gas. He (or she) was nice enough to leave the tools inside.
Drunken detour
An apparently drunk driver traveled through the barricades on the bridge, with police in pursuit.
Workers were in the process of replacing the bridge’s expansion joints.
The driver managed to get off the bridge unscathed.
“Sometimes people don’t know they’re in a construction zone,” said Mike Teodecki, a city engineer who worked on the project.
Homeless cleanup
Before beginning their duties, employees with Thompson Electric Co., a company in charge of electric work on the bridge project, asked the city to clean out trash left beneath the span by homeless people.
The city cleaned out the trash and debris, but Thompson didn’t get to work under the bridge until a couple of weeks later.
“It had already started piling up again,” said Travis Capper, a city engineer who worked on the project.
Stephanie Warsmith can be reached at 330-996-3705 or swarsmith@thebeaconjournal.com.
