Sand trap

Workers will disassemble a 150-ton excavator to free it from grip of sea and sand in Avalon
By BRIAN IANIERI Staff Writer, (609) 463-6713
Press of Atlantic City
Published: Thursday, March 30, 2006
Updated: Thursday, March 30, 2006

AVALON — As the tide crept closer and closer, workers tried Wednesday to free a 150-ton piece of construction equipment from a 12-foot-deep crater on the beach at Townsends Inlet.

Like an outstretched hand clasping a ledge, an excavator's gigantic mechanical arm tried to push its heavy metal body from the crater.

The trouble started Tuesday afternoon when the huge machine — worth about $1.2. million new — began to sink into the sand.

The excavator was being used to build a new rock seawall. The area where they are working was a late addition made by the Army Corps of Engineers to its plans. The ground there had not been tested to see if it would withstand the weight of the excavator.

Unable to extricate the machine Tuesday, workers left it there overnight. At high tide, seawater filled the hole.

During low tide Wednesday, workers repaired the engine in the hope that with the help of some earth movers, they could free the behemoth.

The spectacle drew dozens of onlookers, but one common sentiment: There is no way they're going to get that thing out of there.

“They'll never get it out,” said John Peltier, of Sea Isle City.

And they didn't.

As high tide approached, salt water trickled and then streamed into the crater, made wider and deeper in the attempts to free it. Workers piled makeshift dunes on the beach to keep the water at bay.

By Wednesday afternoon, nature had won — again.

The machine was just one outstretched mechanical arm in a sandy pool of brown-gray water. Its wheels, body and cab were submerged.

“It wasn't a good day,” said Alex Dick, the project manager for Jay Cashman Inc., which has been constructing a seawall in Avalon's northern end.

“The soil just wasn't suited to support a machine like this,” he said.

An Army Corps spokesman could not be reached Wednesday night.

Avalon Public Works Director Harry deButts said the project was on schedule to finish by mid-April.

“This is really a tough nut,” he said.

Marvin Leonard, a retired construction supervisor who lives in Avalon, spent Wednesday afternoon looking through binoculars from his minivan, parked by the toll bridge on Ocean Drive.

“If they get the lift working, they can push that up in the air … I don't know. They ain't moving it yet,” he said.

“Each time the tide comes in, she'll sink more.”

Avalon and Cashman officials said nobody was injured when the excavator began to sink Tuesday. The fuel inside was contained and there was no environmental damage, they said.

But the machine?

That's a different story.

Dick said they will have to disassemble the excavator — including its bucket and counterweight — to remove it from the beach.

“In this business, you can expect the unexpected,” Dick said.

To e-mail Brian Ianieri at The Press:BIanieri@pressofac.com