World Trade Center Recovery & Clean Up
Tully Construction was one of four contractors chosen to perform the clean up after the two World Trade Center buildings collapsed. Tully's crews who were already working on a 100 million dollar Westside Highway project right in front of the World Trade Center for New York State responded immediately with the equipment Tully had on site and from other job sites in Manhattan. Quickly Tully began to bring in the big equipment necessary to move the massive steel structures and huge amounts of pulverized concrete that hampered the search and rescue operations. So destructive was the collapse that no one even found a file cabinet or desk or computer that was in the Trade Center buildings before the attack. This would never be a straightforward demolition and debris removal project, Tully's personnel working 24 hours a day 7 days a week began moving tremendous quantities of this material to the Fresh Kills Landfill which was opened temporarily for this project: Tully topped out at over 500 loads in a single day. Eventually this material was trucked to docks by Tully where it was load on barges and then shipped to the Fresh Kills Landfill.
The primary concern at the start was rescuing survivors. Once it became clear that there would be few survivors, Tully proceeded with a dignified recovery of remains. Quickly the site became a well organized operation--- the biggest in New York and one of the biggest in United States history.
During the first month Tully's ground zero crews began shoring and bracing in the station at Cortlandt Street on the N and R subway line. The entrance to this station was collapsed so Tully's crews had to dig their way in but fortunately the station itself was not collapsed and the structural damage to the steel beams was minimal. The station was quickly reinforced and repaired to allow trains to travel through the station opening up some of lower Manhattan to the subway system. At the height of the clean up Tully had close to 300 people working at the site repairing and replacing utility pipes and ducts for Con Edison and Verizon this just to get their infrastructures up and running after the attack and another 250 people working on the clean up at the same time. Over 120 backhoes, payloaders, and trucks worked everyday for over 8 months. As the pile of ruble from the buildings diminished another problem presented itself. There was concern that the slurry wall or" bathtub" might be damaged or fail entirely and could be leaking, allowing the Hudson River to flood into the foundation hole. This flooding which would have been just 5 feet below the top of the wall at high tide would have undermined adjacent streets and utilities and have dramatically increased the complexity of the clean up project as well as the time which to complete it. Also there was the possibility that the PATH tubes would flood which could have resulted in the flooding of the entire subway system up to Canal Street. When the towers collapsed, the lateral support that had been provided by the basement structural steel for the parking garage was removed and the debris was now supplying that lateral support. So the slurry wall had to be repaired as the debris was removed or the there could have been a catastrophic failure.
Excavation for foundation of the World Trade Center 1968 The slurry wall constructed by a joint venture known as West Street Associates, Tully Construction's predecessor company Tully & DiNapoli was a major partner in this project. Built in the late 1960's it was a reinforced concrete wall eighty feet deep and 3,500 feet around the perimeter, with approximately 900 tie backs. These were installed to support the slurry wall against the forces of water and soil during and after construction of the Trade Center. The biggest concern was what kind of condition was the system of tie backs in. This system had held the wall in place for over 30 years but now it was feared it may have considerable damage. Tully's engineers jump on this problem immediately they realized that the debris from the building was supporting the slurry wall and could not be removed until the wall was repaired. Seeing that this was a huge coordination problem between the clean up operation and the placement of a new system to support the slurry wall Tully's engineers began to pull all the primary contractors, the clean up contractors, and the tie back subcontractors together. Tully's engineers coordinated all facets of the tieback operation. They had all areas of operations working around the clock coordinated to accommodate the quickest way to install the new tie back system and continue to clean up the site as Installation of Tiebacks on the south side of the slurry wall quickly as possible. Tully had to bring in dirt fill to support the slurry wall in areas where there was no debris or in areas where the debris had to be removed before they could install the new tiebacks or in areas that where thought to in danger of failure. Tully brought in over 100,000 cubic yards of stabilizing material. From coordinating where and when demolition or excavation activity would take place to the construction of the working platforms for the actual installation of the tie backs which was all done by Tully's personnel to filling areas where it was needed and then the actual coring of the slurry wall and finally the actual installation of the new tie back system Tully's engineers had their hands full 24 hours a day. Over 900 tieback anchors were eventually installed.
Tully's engineers had to deal with no less than 8 different companies, agencies and engineering firms. Because of the efforts of Tully's engineers and the rest of the supervisors at Tully this project was completed long before anyone had anticipated. As this project was going on it was felt that it was needed to relive some of the pressure on the slurry wall while the repair work was in process. Tully's personnel were also involved in the installation of a dewatering system to relive some of the pressure until the new tie-back system could be completed. From digging test pits to excavating to expose utilities and the location of the wellpoints Tully's engineers where instrumental in getting this system up and running as quickly as possible.
Demolition of Buildings 4 & 5 Additionally Tully demolished both buildings left standing along Church Street World Trade Center 4 and World Trade Center 5. To do this Tully had to build bridging platforms to span across the elevated sidewalk above the shopping area under buildings 4 and 5. This had to be done all around these two buildings to support the cranes necessary to demolish the buildings. The internal structure of the buildings was then pre-cut to allow for braking points so the structure would crumb as the wrecking ball was dropped on it. The building where demolished by the ball and crane method, this was done because of the fear of doing even more damage to the utilities in the area if the building was demolished by selective blasting or the risk of sending people in the building to do it by hand was just to great. This was the first time in over a decade a wrecking ball was used in New York City. The effort by all the contractors on site was monumental but Tully's crews move more material with less equipment and personnel then the other 3 contractors combined.
http://web.archive.org/web/20040413001332/http://www.tullyconstruction.com/projects/information.asp?id=16
11:05 AM Dec 1
