Well, if they anticipate success, I guess that's good enough for me. It's only an easy 8000 more feet of tunneling. What could possibly go wrong?

And yet, you still won't talk to me. That's fine, Stranger. We all know what you're really afraid of.
@BerthaDeBlues

2017 is also the next mayoral election. I can't wait for Ed Murray to rewrite his history regarding this project.

Great Wheel keep on turnin', Proud Bertha keep on churnin'....

why did they edit out the only part of the video anybody wanted to see?

@5 Yeah I was confused about the breakthrough - did the cement all so fast it so fast it wasn't captured? (Hard to believe) Or did they really edit it? That was weird.

This is good practice for the next time it gets stuck. No root cause yet? Yikes.

@4: rimshot!

If this thing breaks down under downtown Seattle where they can't dig a pit, it's all over.

The other option is to reroute down Alaskan way, and surface near Pike St. Or, continue digging, don't make the same mistake twice and hit any building foundations. Don't sink and setttle any buildings it is tunneling under, are there any big ones? If it breaks again halfway, what's the plan? Probably hand tunnel the remainder, and the state throws in another billion.

The pit seems to be filling with mud and water,, probably 20 feet deep by now. I wouldn't drive on the Viaduct today (or perhaps ever) because that muddy mixture is what is holding up the foundations that are only a few yards away. Ever see a sand castle collapse as the tide rolls in?

I can't tell if they are trying to inject grout or if they are pumping, either way the effort looks laughably small compared to what they are dealing with. As of 10:00am I see no "tide line" on the wall of the pit meaning that if they are pumping they are not gaining on it. The question is where is the mud coming from; if they excavate 20 feet of mud or more a day for the next several months, Pioneer Square will become the Atlantis of the Northwest.

Why is the pit filling with water? They are spaying water into the pit area to reduce the dust from grinding though the concrete wall. OSHA workplace safety rules and puget sound air quality requires spraying water to reduce the airborne silica dust from the concrete. The Pit can easily be pumped dry.

Tell us, Sgt Doom, how many layers of tin foil do you prefer on your head? And how did you build the Faraday cage in your mother's basement?

Sgt Doom, using silver thread and pure spring water, has woven his own Faraday cage underwear to protect his precious bodily fluids.

Do you have any idea how much water it takes to fill an 80-foot diameter pit to the depth of 20-30 feet? It is fairly easy to calculate, I'll leave it to the reader. This isn't from dust spraying.

I'm sure they anticipated some leakage of water and mud into the pit when they drilled. This is a fill area so they are essentially creating a tube that goes 120 feet down into Puget Sound. The water pressure at this depth is immense; simply opening a 1" seacock in a hull at that is only five feet underwater produces a spray like a firehose.

The question is whether this is within what they anticipated and what the plan for dealing with it was, and what the worst-case scenario is.

I consider it irresponsible to leave the Viaduct open for traffic during this operation since there are so many unknowns. Can anybody point to empirical data for the results of digging a 120-foot deep 80-foot diameter hole within the critical area of a double decker highway structure built so long ago that we don't even really know what the foundation piers look like? A bit of caution is in order. "Most likely we will be OK" is not good enough when the consequences are so drastic. A few days of bad traffic would be a small price to pay, even though the most likely case is that people will moan about how unnecessary closure was.

Here's a Plan B that untrustworthy DOT shmucks might consider:

If the cutter head can be fixed and the boring process restarted, it could follow the seawall to a portal near Pike Street, another 1500' or so. Complete rows of cement pilings would 'BOX' this shorter bore tunnel between them, more or less 'stabilizing' the soils in which it will sit, removing the plainly evident threat of catastrophic destabilization beneath downtown buildings. I'm not kidding.

The main drawbacks to this Plan B is the 'construction disruption' of completing the segments from Pike Street to Lower Belltown and extending Battery Street Tunnel. These would entail redirecting traffic, costs would be greater, but the incredible danger of soil destabilization would be nearly eliminated or at best sufficiently reduced.
This is PLAN B.

Old George. The diameter is 60' and the depth is near 180' near Spring Street, 5 blocks to the north. Bertha will 'descend' another 60' then level and rise above sea level at Blanchard/Battery, in of course, all soluable compact wet/dry clay. If Bertha 'ascends' here at Main Street then to a Pike arrangement portal, not bad, with
the boxed-in drill-fill cement walls on both sides.
THIS IS PLAN B.

@17, they hit a pipe, rookie mistake. Like they say, call before you dig. How deep do skyscraper foundation piles go? Sometimes pretty deep. I'm sure they'll be more careful going forward.

@22 Not a chance in hell with a completely exposed bearing.

@23 - is that avatar a pic of Neah Bay?

@15 I don't like all of Sgt Doom's opinions either but the interest rate swapping and bleeding of municipalities isn't the stuff of conspiracy, it happened and continues to happen today.

Is that a crane on its side inside the pit? There are two big yellow objects and one looks an awful lot like the back and side of a small crane. That is one damage deposit that isn't coming back. Oh well, blame it on the state "soil conditions were different than the contract specified..."

I hope everybody is OK.

@24 it's the Skagit River

@26 that's plywood floating on top of the muck