玛丽亚飓风于9月20日袭击波多黎各的六个月后，滑坡，交通信号灯和重建交通使埃德加·伊涅斯塔（Edgariñesta）的通勤在整个100英里范围内的岛屿中途进行了缓慢的爬行。It takes him five hours to make the round trip to Morovis, where he serves as project manager on a new bridge being built across the Manati River.
Iñesta几乎不是一个人。Iñesta说，在Del Valle Group的30名男子中，努力取代肿胀的河流300英尺下流的钢筋混凝土桥，通常有几个人会在日常通勤中使用这座桥。现在，他们像莫罗维斯（Morovis）的居民一样，必须穿过山利的发夹，穿过山上到达现场，或者福特（Ford）。
在飓风过后玛丽亚,绝望的残油ents walked across the river, carrying the sick residents of Morovis on their backs to hospitals.
不仅仅是使工人每天早晨来的工作。目的感和恢复热带天堂的340万人的动力可能是最大的动力。
“This is a way to build back, but better,” says Carmelo Calderón, Del Valle vice president. “The community really appreciates our efforts here.” So much so that local residents have prepared lunch for the crew each day they’ve been on site since early January, he adds.
The $4.7 million bridge is built 1 ft above the river's 200-year-flood level and is built to withstand floodwaters. Del Valle President Humberto Reynolds says he took stock of what materials were on hand and told the designer to use those materials. In the days and weeks after the storm, lack of power stilled the production of aggregate and asphalt.
尽管这座桥被美国运输部认为是临时的结构，该结构负责损坏的当地桥梁和道路，但它的建造持续了。由美国桥在俄亥俄州制造的8米宽的三跨模块化钢桥被运到17个容器中，并使用两架起重机在40英尺深的钻孔轴基础上装配。
The trusses were aligned using digital surveying and workers had to check and double check the alignment before putting the sections together. "It was a challenge," Iñesta says. "There was no way of going back."
Employing design-build delivery, Del Valle changed the original foundation design to help speed construction, allowing the bridge to open in early April, Calderón says.
“承包商，美国政府和波多黎各人民的合作努力使这项非常令人满意的项目。”。"Knowing that our bridges are being used for connecting communities that were shattered, is something I’ll never forget. And these communities will use these bridges for generations to come.”
By Pam Radtke Russell and Scott Blair
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