Let's All Watch Bertha Birth Together

April 4, 2017 10:00 AM

Gigantic tunneling machine Bertha, after years stuck underneath downtown Seattle, is finally breaking through. Watch it live!
posted by Existential Dread (46 comments total)

Initial breakthrough happened a few minutes ago with a rush of water.
posted by Existential Dread at 10:01 AM on April 4, 2017 [3 favorites]

Alternate linky
posted by Existential Dread at 10:02 AM on April 4, 2017

Alternate linky had some potentially NSFW banner ads !!
posted by blakewest at 10:10 AM on April 4, 2017

Bertha, don't you come around here anymore.
posted by anazgnos at 10:10 AM on April 4, 2017 [6 favorites]

Alternate linky had some potentially NSFW banner ads !!

Apologies! The Stranger is the local alt-weekly, and with AdBlocker I don't see any of that stuff so wasn't aware.
posted by Existential Dread at 10:11 AM on April 4, 2017

Boring indeed!
posted by TedW at 10:12 AM on April 4, 2017 [3 favorites]

I've been away from Seattle for almost a year and had completely forgot about this project! I'm kind of sad I'm not there to see it finish, but I'm glad that I left the city before the inevitable traffic nightmares that will follow in its wake while people adjust to the new route.

I'll have to plan a visit for when the viaduct is completely destroyed and the waterfront is opened.
posted by Tevin at 10:17 AM on April 4, 2017

This has always been a terrible, no-good, very bad idea
posted by seiryuu at 10:23 AM on April 4, 2017 [3 favorites]

TedW: "Boring indeed!"

It's incredibly boring!
posted by chavenet at 10:24 AM on April 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

Press 'H' to remove the hearts / chat.
posted by Diskeater at 10:28 AM on April 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

Thank fuck for that. At one point it was looking like the project would never end and we'd just have to fill the hole up with money.
posted by Artw at 10:28 AM on April 4, 2017 [7 favorites]

Normally I'd never say this, but read the comments on the live feed. It's pretty solid entertainment.
posted by Muddler at 10:29 AM on April 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

Press 'H' to remove the hearts / chat.

thank you thank you thank you
posted by Existential Dread at 10:29 AM on April 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

Can someone tell me what exactly I'm looking at? Like, where's all the dust coming from? What are the support things supporting? Does the whole tunnel have a lid on it right now? Should I avert my eyes when the nameless horror finally emerges from it's chitinous slumber?
posted by Tevin at 10:30 AM on April 4, 2017 [3 favorites]

Ha ha ha ha ha!!!! i love tunnel stuff still, my dad worked most of his career for a construction company that does deep-trench, trenchless, and specialty utility construction, and i did a turn as a tunnel laborer because i love those machines and they're cool as fuck, but my god, this project. out of spite i would have liked to see a 2x as big viaduct built to obscure as much real estate view as possible. fuckin seattle. i need to call my dad and laugh uproariously that the stupid machine finally holed out and neither of us had to work on it
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 10:30 AM on April 4, 2017 [7 favorites]

Why didn't they take away the structure they expect the machine to bore through?
posted by Oyéah at 10:32 AM on April 4, 2017

tevin you are looking at the shaft. the "support things" are big-ass beams supporting the shaft. cutting those beams and putting them in is some specialty shit!!!

looks like dust from the shaft wall (??) and sludge from the machine coming out the bottom right now.

its not a nameless horror its name is bertha
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 10:32 AM on April 4, 2017 [3 favorites]

"hey baby my shaft's so big i need specialty support beams to support my mass

also i'm a drill"

it's a lonely life, being a piece of ultra-niche construction equipment
posted by Tevin at 10:41 AM on April 4, 2017 [12 favorites]

It's done? The last minutes of the video are all smoke-filled room. Can anyone confirm Bertha's made it through?
posted by chavenet at 10:53 AM on April 4, 2017

Well the Periscope feed just started replaying and from the beginning without a notification and I just watched about 10 minutes of it like a damned idiot before realizing what was happening.
posted by Tevin at 11:01 AM on April 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

Woof. I can't be the only person who read Boneshaker. It'll all end in tears!
posted by orrnyereg at 11:01 AM on April 4, 2017 [8 favorites]

Well, the main feed does not replay and I missed it by 18 minutes. Weak sauce.
posted by Samizdata at 11:04 AM on April 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

The Stranger livefeed is still going (with caveats about NSFW banner ads that may appear) but all I'm seeing is concrete dust.

WSDOT also has a livestream page, but it appears to be misconfigured HTTPS. From WSDOT's page:

The contractor Seattle Tunnel Partners began mining around 8 a.m. this morning. The tunneling machine Bertha will mine through the five-foot-thick concrete wall of the disassembly pit, an effort that is expected to take several hours.

I don't think it's done yet, but I fear the concrete dust may make watching very difficult.
posted by Existential Dread at 11:07 AM on April 4, 2017

Periscope livefeed that is still ongoing here, lots of dust.
posted by Existential Dread at 11:11 AM on April 4, 2017

Is this gonna be like the giraffe? because I ain't gonna hang around watching for another thing not to come out.
posted by Mary Ellen Carter at 11:11 AM on April 4, 2017 [4 favorites]

Aaaaand one more periscope feed that appears to be a drone or helicopter.
posted by Existential Dread at 11:13 AM on April 4, 2017

...which shows a lot of expensive man-hours just standin' around starin' at the dust cloud...
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:15 AM on April 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

Aww missed it... But the story how they fixed it/dug it up and basically rebuilt most of it is fascinating too.

Turns out these things don't have reverse.
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 11:17 AM on April 4, 2017

Good vantage point for when the eldritch horror rears out of the earth, tho
posted by Existential Dread at 11:17 AM on April 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

...which shows a lot of expensive man-hours just standin' around starin' at the dust cloud...

You mean like we're doing right now?
posted by klanawa at 11:18 AM on April 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

There are some neat videos out there of drones zooming through the tunnel, too.
posted by Tevin at 11:21 AM on April 4, 2017

I'm actually working, sneaking in peeks now and then, if that's any consolation to you.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:21 AM on April 4, 2017

Yeah, I'm watching the wall come down while discussing the impending demise of ARPA-E with a researcher.
posted by Existential Dread at 11:30 AM on April 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

My whole body is longing for a kaiju to spring forth and splash into Elliot Bay.
posted by Tevin at 11:33 AM on April 4, 2017 [5 favorites]

The whole damn wall is destroyed at this point. Crazy.
posted by Existential Dread at 11:40 AM on April 4, 2017

That is pretty damn cool.
posted by Tevin at 11:57 AM on April 4, 2017

I used to work at the Starbucks in SODO, a little east of where the Seattle Tunnel Partners are based. They came through my store right after Bertha froze for the first time, and complained that last time their vanilla lattes weren't made right. It took me all of my strength not to say to them, "Oh, like you never make mistakes."
posted by gc at 12:03 PM on April 4, 2017 [18 favorites]

how are the ritual sacrifices holding up? is everybody still strapped down at the bottom of the pit?
posted by indubitable at 12:04 PM on April 4, 2017 [3 favorites]

I was kind of hoping the Kool Aid man would bust through at the end.

Congratulations, Seattle! You have Finished Part of a Thing.
posted by phooky at 12:10 PM on April 4, 2017 [4 favorites]

Time lapse video of Bertha components being loaded aboard Jumbo Shipping's heavy load carrier Fairpartner at Osaka, Japan in March 2013. More about the tunnel project on Wikipedia.
posted by cenoxo at 12:41 PM on April 4, 2017

It's probably a tiny scratch of a trench in the big picture of things, but does this not seem like a tempting trigger of that Shaking Crunching thing we've been waiting for in the Cascadian Subduction Zone?
posted by yoga at 12:58 PM on April 4, 2017 [4 favorites]

It's probably a tiny scratch of a trench in the big picture of things, but does this not seem like a tempting trigger of that Shaking Crunching thing we've been waiting for in the Cascadian Subduction Zone?

I don't know about construction triggering it, but what happens to all the people traveling through the tunnel when the inevitable tsunami hits? I live on the other side of the country, but every time I travel through one of our many undersea tunnels, I have to try very hard not to think about water pouring in from both sides as traffic stalls halfway through.
posted by indubitable at 1:03 PM on April 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

Aww, mannnnn.....missed it. Ad-free stream the Stranger was using is still up, guys climbing around the innards of it is kind of rad at full resolution (dudes seem like they are having a joyous lunch). Looks like something on the front of the Death Star. Video of the breakthrough, dust clears and exciting things happen ~1hr 45 min in.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 1:05 PM on April 4, 2017

There's a guy in a vest and hard hat sitting on a girder eating a sandwich this is awesome.
posted by bq at 1:33 PM on April 4, 2017

What about the costs overruns? Are they still being funded by the good people of Seattle?

*grabs popcorn, waits till the next thing goes wrong
posted by BlueHorse at 6:28 PM on April 4, 2017

its not a nameless horror its name is bertha

Comment of the month.
posted by fshgrl at 10:04 PM on April 4, 2017 [1 favorite]