Today, a National 1300a 30-ton max lifting capacity, 110-foot, four-section boom crane will lift and place a 13,000 pound cube of concrete into place.
A similar thing will happen a few dozen times across the country today, but – for some reason – the one going on in Salt Lake City, Utah is more important.
The crane will hoist and settle a concrete cube dubbed UT6 – a cement block that was removed from the slurry wall at Ground Zero under the World Trade Center. UT6 will be placed at the Fort Douglas Military Museum as a memorial to all the fallen soldiers from the Rocky Mountain Region, and it will be officially christened with a ceremony today with Utah Governor Gary Herbert among other dignitaries.
The Utah Fallen Warriors Memorial project is designed to honor both law enforcement officers and firefighters who lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks, as well as the military personnel who have died in related conflicts since that time.
Garrett Blood, Maintain Crane’s Executive Director of the transportation project, says locally the stone will be a memorial to the more than 100 fallen soldiers and their families from the region – and to all those who may come later.
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Mountain Crane provided the personnel, drivers, permits, insurance, fuel costs, crane apparatus and collaborated with contacts along the route from pickup to delivery. As the plans to move the block came together, Mountain Crane found they had everything to pick up and lower the massive block, but they still needed a way to move it.
That’s what neighbors are for, right?
Mountain Crane had been a longtime and regular customer of Kenworth Sales Company, and when they needed a partner there was no more logical place to turn.
The Utah-based dealership group quickly jumped into the project, providing a 2014 Kenworth T660 with a 72-inch sleeper through its PacLease division for a tour that started in Florida in August.
The two artifacts weighed 13,000 pounds and 12,000 pounds respectively, putting quite a stress on the AirGlide A8400L 40K suspension.
One block was destined for Lawrence, Kan. and the other for the Fort Douglas War Memorial in Salt Lake City.
“We’ve had a long-standing relationship with Mountain Crane,” says Martha Mills, Marketing Manager for Kenworth Sales Company. “There’s a long professional relationship, and that has turned into a strong personal relationship. When they approached us about (the project), we decided it was a good fit for our particulars and skill set and there was something – a product – we could do more than just write a check.”
