Laborers sweated while trucks of concrete took an ice bath, as crews poured the deck for the Highway 52 bridge over Highway 54 on Tuesday night.

Scottie Martin, owner of Scott’s Concrete, explained concrete cures faster as it gets warmer. When the concrete sets too quickly, Martin explained there can be some surface-level cracking and finishing defects. So for the major deck pour on the overpass, crews work by night—when it’s slightly cooler. But in the dog days of summer, even the nights are hot. So on Tuesday night, Martin says his company mixed 6,000 pounds of ice with the concrete for the Highway 52 bridge deck, to get the temperature just right. “We replace the ice for water in the mix to keep the temperature specs under control for the bridge decks,” Martin explained.

“I’ll probably get a Christmas card from Arctic Glacier,” he quipped.

Martin says Scott’s Concrete—which supplies concrete for large and small projects around the Lake area—will be pouring more concrete for the bridge soon. “If this heat doesn’t break then we’ll have to use ice on all of it,” he said. Once temperatures get much above 85 degrees, Martin says crews have to bring in the ice, if they don’t want to wait for the heat wave to pass.

MoDOT says the project is in multiple stages: the first stage took care of most of the width of the bridge deck while eastbound cars used a portion of it. Once this stage is finished, the eastbound traffic will use the new decking while the remainder is demolished and replaced. Westbound traffic will continue to be detoured onto eastbound Highway 54 to the Route M/Highway 87 exit.

The project is slated to be finished by the end of September.


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