Visitor can't walk onto Hawaii's top tourist attraction, the USS Arizona Memorial, for one more couple of several weeks. The National Park Service is working on implementing a new way to anchor the active floating dock and ramp.
"There's nothing that replaces the tourist experience standing on the Arizona Memorial.. it's actually a highly effective place," spokesperson for the WWII Valor in the Pacific National Monument, Jay Blount said. "Its a top rated priority for folks.. to re-establish visitation as quickly as possible."
The USS Arizona Memorial is place where persons from all over the globe come to pay their values, however, since May visitors haven't been capable to set foot on the site that was created to honor the men and women that died on December 7, 1941. Architectural problems, issues with the website visitor loading dock and ramp led to park service decreasing access onto the monument until problems are complete.
"We had noticed [the dock] was moving left and right.. and in addition forwards and backwards. It's originally developed to have about a 2 ft. movement that corresponds with normal tides, but we viewed after study early on in our evaluation that this floating dock was moving more like 8 to 10 feet laterally over the surface of the water and this movement was creating unacceptable level of torque on the little small loading ramp that site visitors stand on," Blount said.
The National Park Service is using a non-public contractor on a long term, permanent fix. Blount says one of the proposals includes using "helical anchors," steel screws that will go into the soil. He adds that with proposal deadlines and the roughly time that it would take to implement the variations, it's unlikely the memorial will be accessible to the public before October 1st.
In the meantime, the visitor center is open during usual business hours and the tour boat still takes visitors as nearby as possible to look at the memorial. Blount says while the 4,300 daily tickets are still being used, the nearly 1,300 first come, first serve tickets aren't going as fast as they used to.
"Traditionally, they're gone by 9 a.m. at this time of the year and now its more like 11 a.m, but the traite are still being dispersed and the visitors are still getting out and using the procedure. I just think that its having a tiny bit longer," he added.
Tourists can still take part in the free USS Arizona Memorial programs, including a 25-minute documentary film and a narrated harbor tour of Battleship Row.
"There's nothing that replaces the tourist experience standing on the Arizona Memorial.. it's actually a highly effective place," spokesperson for the WWII Valor in the Pacific National Monument, Jay Blount said. "Its a top rated priority for folks.. to re-establish visitation as quickly as possible."
The USS Arizona Memorial is place where persons from all over the globe come to pay their values, however, since May visitors haven't been capable to set foot on the site that was created to honor the men and women that died on December 7, 1941. Architectural problems, issues with the website visitor loading dock and ramp led to park service decreasing access onto the monument until problems are complete.
"We had noticed [the dock] was moving left and right.. and in addition forwards and backwards. It's originally developed to have about a 2 ft. movement that corresponds with normal tides, but we viewed after study early on in our evaluation that this floating dock was moving more like 8 to 10 feet laterally over the surface of the water and this movement was creating unacceptable level of torque on the little small loading ramp that site visitors stand on," Blount said.
The National Park Service is using a non-public contractor on a long term, permanent fix. Blount says one of the proposals includes using "helical anchors," steel screws that will go into the soil. He adds that with proposal deadlines and the roughly time that it would take to implement the variations, it's unlikely the memorial will be accessible to the public before October 1st.
In the meantime, the visitor center is open during usual business hours and the tour boat still takes visitors as nearby as possible to look at the memorial. Blount says while the 4,300 daily tickets are still being used, the nearly 1,300 first come, first serve tickets aren't going as fast as they used to.
"Traditionally, they're gone by 9 a.m. at this time of the year and now its more like 11 a.m, but the traite are still being dispersed and the visitors are still getting out and using the procedure. I just think that its having a tiny bit longer," he added.
Tourists can still take part in the free USS Arizona Memorial programs, including a 25-minute documentary film and a narrated harbor tour of Battleship Row.
