The wheels are still attached to the house trailer that Pamela Rush calls home, but the 49-year-old mother of two is trapped. A lifelong resident of Lowndes County, Alabama, she lives off disability checks, struggling to pay the bills on a ninth-grade education. It’s hard to attribute her situation to any one cause—she was born in one of the poorest counties in one of the poorest states and, like the rest of the county’s mostly African-American population, she wrestles with the legacy of slavery and systemized discrimination. Just down the road from her home are the sharecroppers’ quarters where she was born.
Yet the most immediate source of Rush’s troubles is immediate: the puddle of sewage that has collected in her backyard, brewing with human feces. Whenever the toilet inside is flushed, the waste travels through a 10-ft. pipe straight to her backyard. Thousands of the county’s residents are in the same situation. Local government won’t pay to build infrastructure to connect them to proper wastewater-disposal lines, so they’re left to deal with the myriad problems caused by living in sewage that bubbles up into showers and bathtubs
HydraTech engineered products are helping water utilities for a fraction of the cost of repairs after sinkholes occur. Learn more at HydraTech's website.
Market DOT Challenge
The Hopple Street bridge above I-75 in Cincinnati needed to be strengthened to an appropriate capacity. The project required complex traffic control and challenging height access. Engineered Solution
Carbon fiber wrap was the chosen technology for structurally rehabilitating the existing bridge. The FRP technology increased the bridge’s shear strength. Scope
The project required nightly lane closures and a hydraulic lift to access parts of the supporting structure that were up to 50 above the interstate. The surfaces were prepared by pressure washing and grinding. Multiple layers of carbon layers were applied onto specific pier caps sections in a continuous form. The process was completed in a two week period. Solution The application of fiber wrap reinforcement renewed the integrity of the Hopple Street bridge. It proved to be a flexible solution that allowed mobilization and demobilization, only effecting the traffic at night on this congested section of interstate. The project was completed in a fraction of the time and at a portion of the cost required by other repair and reinforcement methods.
WE MISS SEEING YOU
We look forward to getting back on the road!
Unfortunately, all of our tradeshows have been cancelled for 2020. Stay tuned to learn more about our webinars!
Meet Eleanor!
Eleanor attends Butler Tech and is currently fulfilling her co-op by working at HydraTech. She is studying to become a Metallurgical Engineer. At HydraTech she fabricates the HydraTite’s stainless steel retaining band. While she helps out throughout the entire fabricating process she mostly welds, which she likes.
On a more personal note, she has a hamster named Diesel.
