Everybody loves spring. I mean, what’s not to like about balmy afternoons and BC in bloom? But as wonderful as spring can be, it also has a wild side (called freshet), as rapidly melting snowpack can oversaturate the ground supporting and surrounding roads, causing washouts. Washout damage often appears devastating – just look at the washout that closed Highway 33 south of Kelowna in April 2018 (above). It looked like it could take weeks to make it safe for...
In Part 1 of our interview series, we introduced you to a traffic and safety engineer, an electrical engineer, and a highway design engineer. It’s time to round out our engineering team by getting to know what it’s like to work up high, down low, and where the wild things are. That’s right, today we talk to those who work with bridges, earth materials and wildlife. So, without further ado… Zach Staples, Structural Engineer Explain what you do,...
Highways and bridges are earthy matters and a geotechnical engineer is just the kind of person to delve into the deep subject of what’s below ground. We spoke with a geotechnical engineer, one of our four types of engineers, during National Engineering Month to find out about his work on B.C. highways. Meet Warren Lemky, regional geotechnical design engineer, based out of the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure’s Prince George office. Warren, what’s your role as a geotechnical engineer?...
