|
Carrie W
Farmgirl Legend/Chapter Guru
437 Posts
Saratoga Springs
New York
USA
437 Posts |
 Posted - Aug 11 2021 : 09:19:26 AM
|
I have a story to share about an Italian man that had a tremendous impact on my state of New York, and on my personally.
The influential person from Italy that I would like to tell you about is a man who was a household name for me when I was growing up. His name is Arturo Ressi. He was a civil engineer, graduating from Bologna University, and specializing in soil mechanics. After graduation he joined ICOS, an international specialty foundation company, and later became owner of the company and president of the foundation. Ressi worked with a special form of construction known as “slurry” which is a technique that allows for a reinforced concrete wall to be built in the presence of water at any necessary depth. The reason I know about this man is that my father worked for him in the 80’s and 90’s, as an employee of ICOS. By this time, slurry wall construction was a well-developed technique and my father was the head of projects in the US division.
One of the walls that Mr. Ressi built was in New York City. It was basically an invisible wall, since the construction of the building on top of it hid the slurry construction completely, at least, until 2001. On September 11 of that year the World Trade Center collapsed, and the wall was revealed once again. Why is this important? Because the 3 ft thick wall held strong during the collapse of the building and kept the Hudson River from flowing into the area and subsequently filling the entire underground transportation system and probably all of lower Manhattan. Had this happened, we would have seen much greater loss of life on this terrible day. For this, Arturo Ressi received the Distinguished Service Award, the highest recognition given by the Deep Foundations Institute, shortly before his death in 2013.
It is projects like this that made me decide to go back to school at the age of 50 and earn a degree in Engineering Science. I am halfway to my Bachelors, now, and remembering this story keeps me plugging along in my classes!
Attached is a picture of the slurry wall around the base of the
World Trade Center~
Farmgirl Sisterhood #147
2009 Farmgirl of the Year
Not your average Girl ;-)
Tis better to weep at joy than to joy at weeping--Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing |
|
Language and Culture--Italy
