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This Old Arkansas Bridge Just Ain’t Gonna Yield To A Bunch Of Explosives [VIDEO]

Twitter video/Sarafina Brooks

Twitter video/Sarafina Brooks

Eric Owens Editor
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The Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department had an embarrassingly difficult time on Tuesday trying to use a bunch of explosives to destroy an outdated bridge in Little Rock.

The demolition of the 93-year-old Broadway Bridge was a big event locally. A few thousand gawkers and a herd of reporters showed up to take in the scene.

As planned, workers detonated their carefully-placed explosives just after 10 a.m., reports Little Rock ABC affiliate KATV.

There was a rumbly bang. There were some wafts of black smoke. And then … nothing. Not one thing — except for the Broadway Bridge still standing proudly.

The gathered gawkers were not impressed.

The people in charge of exploding the bridge then proceeded to Plan B, and C, and D and so forth and so on.

Reporters and perhaps a few stray, seriously easy-to-entertain onlookers hung tough on the scene.

Some five long hours — and eight attempts — after the first effort to bring down the bridge, highway department workers finally managed to pull off the feat.

Here is the river now that engineers finally managed to destroy the bridge.

Transportation officials later told reporters that the explosives actually worked to collapse the bridge’s steel arches. It all went totally as planned. The problem, they swore, was that the bridge more or less folded onto itself.

Construction of a new bridge to replace the now-finally-collapsed Broadway Bridge is expected to take about six months.

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