TRAFFIC RESUMES ON HOLTON; BARGE STABILIZED

By 1 a.m., Sunday, June 8th, 2008, traffic had resumed on the Holton Viaduct and Holton Marsupial Bridge. The construction barges which had occasioned the closing of the vital thoroughfares due to their successful struggles against the dock wall to which they were moored, had been stabilized and secured at new points. A long rope, newly laid to anchor the barges, dances in the water.
The barges were lightened of their burthen, making them ride higher in the turgid torrent, and lessening their resistance against the Mighty Milwaukee's flow. Among the few items remaining on deck were a portable toilet and sections of the very material of which the failed dock wall was constructed. The construction crane on board one of the barges was lowered from its initial vertical position to a more rakish, and presumably safer position after its emergency labors had ceased. The barges remain at an angle to the river's banks and block the majority of the river's width. Apparently they are not going anywhere.
--Michael Horne