Bertha's pit

This picture was in the Seattle Times along with an article saying "Seattle Tunnel Partners" has started digging a 120-feet-deep and 80-feet-wide support pit to give crews access to the broken drill. You might remember Bertha stopped moving under the old viaduct last December, right after choking on something and overheating.

Here's a picture when she was fresh off the boat from Japan, and the expectation was that drilling would already be finished this month. 

Well. So far Bertha has only traveled about 1,000 feet with a whopping 10,000 left to go...

We zig-zag past the waterfront construction all the time and I thought they were already digging the thing out.  But all these months, they've just been trying to lower the groundwater in enclosed areas around the drill so they can install some massive crane that will eventually hoist pieces of the machine to the surface for repair.

I thought it was kinda funny that Washington DOT set up a construction cam website to showcase their horrible mess. 
(click here)