Here's what all the Hooplah was about.

Here's the Miami Herald article describing what I had the joy of photographing from the windows of my office. Yeah, bitches. Relish my view. Some of you stare out at the blue waters of Biscayne Bay, the container ships churning down the Miami River, or Coral Gables, the City Beautiful.

I stare out at the Airport Runways, and the intersections of two major highway arteries in Miami. Jealous? Yeah. You're jealous.

Anyhoo. Article here, which describes what you're seeing in these pictures, wherein they took down a sign that crosses over a six-lane highway, laid it on the highway, and then pushed it off to the SIDE of the highway until they can figure out what to do with it.

Dolphin Expressway reopens after accident shut it down
By Miami Herald Staff
dadenews@MiamiHerald.com

All westbound lanes of the Dolphin Expressway (State Road 836) are open tonight after being closed for several hours between Northwest 72nd Avenue and the Palmetto Expressway (State Road 826).

Traffic crews reopened the roadway just before 6 p.m. It had been closed since about noon, when a construction crane fell off a flatbed truck and struck a massive overhead road sign.

The shutdown of Miami-Dade's busiest east-west highway disrupted traffic during the evening rush-hour commute.

The Miami-Dade Expressway Authority had two cranes on the scene to dismantle the largest sign in its inventory, which stretches across all six westbound lanes of the Dolphin near the northbound Palmetto, said MDX engineering director Alfred Lurigados.



The accident that caused the shutdown occurred at 11:55 a.m.

Tomas A. Valdez, who drives for Sunshine Hauling of Hialeah, was hauling the crane on a flatbed, exiting from the westbound Dolphin to the northbound Palmetto. Valdez told investigators his truck was cut off on the ramp by a car, forcing him to swerve.

The chains holding the crane to the flatbed jarred loose, police said. The crane body dangled off the side of the flatbed, scraping the roadway. The boom struck one of four major posts holding the sign over the Dolphin, Lurigados said.

Authorities determined that the sign wasn't stable for traffic to continue passing underneath, so they closed the roadway about 12:45 p.m. Several witnesses said they saw it sway in the heavier gusts.

Traffic was forced to exit at Northwest 57th Avenue/Red Road, and seek alternate routes.



MDX Expressway Authority brought in two cranes -- including one from the same company that Valdez drives for -- to cut the dangling sign and catwalk from the remaining posts and lay it on the side of the highway so it can be reopened to through traffic.

An MDX contractor will seek damages to replace the sign from the responsible parties, Lurigados said.