Originally posted at 11:27 am and moved up.
Bertha, the world's widest tunnel-boring machine at 58 feet in diameter, is lodged beneath downtown Seattle after encountering a mysterious obstruction, says KaDeena Yerkan at the Washington State Department of Transportation. The fact that Bertha is "stuck" was first brought to my attention on Twitter by KING 5's Linda Brill. So I followed up with the state to ask long she's been stuck, how long it will take to get her dislodged, and whether the object in her path is in fact Mayor Mike McGinn. "I'm trying to gather information now," says Yerkan. "We know that Bertha has hit some kind of obstruction—don't know if it's manmade or natural. I should have more info very soon." Stay tuned. In the meantime, a deep thought: A tunneling machine that can't tunnel through an obstruction may not be the greatest tunneling machine.
UPDATE at 12:20 PM: Bertha herself has commented to say she's fine—she's just kinda, um, not fine?
Seeing some reports that I’m stuck. I’m working fine, but have encountered an obstruction. I’ll keep you posted.
— Bertha (@BerthaDigsSR99) December 9, 2013The tunneling machine encountered an obstruction in the ground that slowed its progress on Friday evening. Experts from Seattle Tunnel Partners and WSDOT are still gathering information to determine the nature of the obstruction. The machine is operating well, but crews have stopped mining as a precautionary measure. They will determine a path forward after more is known about the obstruction.
The machine is about 60 feet deep and is halfway between South Jackson and South Main. It recently passed the 1,000' mark. We don't yet know when the machine will be moving again—we will provide additional information as we learn more about the obstruction.
