What a way to start a new job: A bridge has collapsed, and you have to help lift out a 22-ton bus

JESSE BUNCH
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
FEB 1, 2022

In the beginning days of a new job, most employees would be happy to have learned their co-workers’ names.

For Alexander Delp, day 10 as a mechanical engineer at Allegheny Crane meant arriving on the scene of one of Pittsburgh’s worst infrastructure disasters in recent memory.

“On Friday, I came in, I had just learned how to do a permit,” said Mr. Delp, 23, of Lower Burrell, standing next to Kyrk Pyros — his boss and owner of the company that extracted the Port Authority bus from the wreckage of the collapsed Fern Hollow Bridge on Monday.

“[I] was still learning things, and getting my hands in everybody’s pie, everyone’s business,” Mr. Delp said. “Learning how to do it all.”

 

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He would end up learning much more on Friday, when Allegheny Crane was called to the scene.

In the hours after the collapse, the team used a 275-ton capacity crane to lift pieces of the wreckage and determine whether anyone was trapped below.

About five hours of searching yielded no fatalities, and Allegheny Crane began the 18-hour process of constructing its even larger, 400-ton crane to retrieve the fallen bus from the bottom of the ravine.


Mr. Delp was thrown into the action, taking measurements and using surveying and range-finding equipment to determine how the team would configure the crane for the extraction.

The newcomer wasn’t alone, however, as Mr. Pyros said the operation took 35 to 40 company crew members.

“Me and one of the crane operators, we pulled a tape together, and I was getting my hands dirty and getting in there with him,” Mr. Delp said. “Because that’s how a team and a family works — that’s how we get stuff done.”

As frigid temperatures settled in on Fern Hollow Monday evening, Pittsburghers gathered to marvel at the sight of yet another bright red bus in big trouble. Though this time, Allegheny Crane wasn’t pulling it out of a Downtown sinkhole, but was lifting the 22-ton vehicle high into the air out of the hollow.

 

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As owner of the company for 18 years, Mr. Pyros is surprisingly familiar with chaos — “we do a lot of disasters, if you want to call it that,” the 54-year-old said. Mr. Pyros is also a structural engineer and the president of KP Builders Inc.

He called the collaborative atmosphere at the bridge “Pittsburgh at its finest,” with police, firefighters, engineers, and even the local church and auto shop coming together.

From a makeshift office across South Braddock Avenue — space lent by Frick Auto to his engineering team — Mr. Pyros remembered the challenges they faced beginning on Friday, days before the bus was raised.

According to Mr. Pyros, the company’s forestry division had to cut down trees to gain access to the collapse site. Later, a three-member engineering team worked to configure the right ground pressure for the crane.

He also remembered the relief when no fatalities were found on Friday.

“It is a miracle no one died,” Mr. Pyros said. “When you see the devastation of that bridge up close, it’s a miracle — just flat out.”

But by Tuesday afternoon, with the bus extracted and hauled away, the scene had lost its wartime energy.

In the basement-turned-warming center of the Waverly Presbyterian Church, Mr. Delp and Mr. Pyros finally took a breather.

As pieces of the larger crane’s frame were being deconstructed and loaded on to flatbed trucks outside, Mr. Pyros mentioned three vehicles still remained in the bottom among the wreckage of the bridge.

Mr. Pyros said that it’s up to the city as to who removes the remaining cars — which are in stable condition — but it will likely be a demolition team.

The Allegheny Crane team only extracted one vehicle besides the bus, because it was leaking fuel.

And despite this weekend’s engineering spectacle, there won’t be any breaks for Mr. Pyros or Mr. Delp.

For the owner, clients are waiting on their now-delayed crane.

For the fresh-faced employee, it’s time to get back to his second week of work.

“This is the best way I learn, just being surrounded by the people I’m surrounded with,” Mr. Delp said. “Rising to the occasion is what we do.”

Jesse Bunch: jbunch@post-gazette.com
First Published February 1, 2022