ATLANTA, June 6, 2017 – OxBlue, a global leader in construction webcam services, has released exclusive video interview footage with the Atlanta I-85 bridge rebuild project team. The interviews feature contractor C.W. Matthews’ leadership speaking to the urgency of the project and how they were able to achieve such tremendous success in an impressive six weeks. The video includes commentary from the following C.W. Matthews personnel: President Dan Garcia, Vice President of Structure Adam Grist, Project Manager Mark Dolan, General Manager Brad Nelson, and Superintendent Steve Aponik. The fire that began on March 30 collapsed a 100-foot section of the road’s northbound lanes and caused extensive damage in both directions. This resulted in closing the interstate and prompted Governor Nathan Deal to declare a state of emergency. The closure forced 240,000 daily commuters to find alternate routes in a city ranked 8th in the world for traffic congestion.
“The first few days were critical. The DOT’s design was done so efficiently that we were able to order materials immediately.”
–Dan Garcia, C.W. Matthews President Within 30 minutes of the collapse, C.W. Matthews’ president, Dan Garcia, and the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) were in communication. That same night, Garcia and Adam Grist, vice president of structures, were onsite to begin assessing the damage. Over the weekend, C.W. Matthews and GDOT strategized a plan for restoring the roadway. “We looked over the DOT engineers’ design for any issues that could be detrimental to the schedule and addressed them from a construction perspective. The criteria were that it had to work from a design standpoint and could be built as quickly as possible,” says Grist, who led the project. In all, 700 feet of the six-lane bridge had to be demolished and rebuilt. C.W. Matthews won the praise and appreciation of local commuters and businesses when they completed the reconstruction a month ahead of the already aggressive June 15 deadline. The state awarded the company a $3.1 million bonus for early completion. The construction cameras assisted the project stakeholders in meeting the aggressive six-week timeframe by providing constant remote visual access to the site. C.W. Matthews, the Georgia Department of Transportation (DOT), and other involved stakeholders were able to monitor quality and progress from any location by viewing the cameras via computers and mobile devices. C.W. Matthews’ president, Dan Garcia, states, “OxBlue has been a great advantage, not only for our company and for the DOT, but for the traveling public; they’re able to see the progress we’re making each day and what goes into a project like this. As we’ve moved along, it’s been a great way to be able to just click and see how our crews are performing, the progress of the job, and also to be able to communicate to others within or outside of the organization that can’t be on the job site. We’re able to conveniently view the project through the cameras from any location – whether it be at the job site, on another job, at the office, or while traveling.” During its more than 70 years in business, C.W. Matthews has worked on a multitude of notable projects, including the Hartfield-Jackson International Airport’s fifth runway and the bridge reconstruction of I-285 over S.R. 400, which, like the I-85 bridge, had been destroyed in a fire.