A race to save a historic lighthouse in peril of crumbling after 150 years
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A race to save a historic lighthouse in peril of crumbling after 150 years |
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This Video Uploaded At 13-07-2024 11:57:23 |
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From The AP:
A race is on to save a lighthouse that has guided ships since the steamboat era from toppling into the Hudson River.
Wooden pilings beneath Hudson-Athens Lighthouse are deteriorating, causing the 150-year-old structure in the middle of the river to shift. Cracks are already apparent on the brick building and its granite foundation.
“The risk is that in five years, this will begin to topple in the water. That's the physical risk. But the risk to the community and the region is huge. It's an identity. And people on both sides have grown up with this lighthouse and love it,” said Van Calhoun of the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse Preservation Society.
While there are other endangered lighthouses around the nation, the peril to this one 100 miles north of New York City is so dire the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed Hudson-Athens on its 2024 list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.
Advocates trying to save the lighthouse believe that without action, an irreversible disaster could be just a few years away.
“If we can get this done, next year, get into the foundation wall, we will be okay,” Calhoun said. “If we don't get the funding for three or four years, we’ll be a big danger.”
The society is raising money to place a submerged steel curtain around the lighthouse, an ambitious preservation project that could cost up to $10 million. And they need to act quickly.
The Hudson-Athens Lighthouse began operating in 1874 off-shore from the city of Hudson, and was eventually co-named for the village of Athens on the other side of the river. It was built to help keep boats from running aground on nearby mud flats, which were submerged at high tide.
The lighthouse is still in use, though now with an automated LED beacon. The preservation society owns the building and maintains it as a museum.
Roof work on the lighthouse is underway, but repairs to the building will ultimately mean little unless workers address damage to some of the 200 wood pilings packed in mud that hold the lighthouse above water.
The support structure has weathered 150 years of tides, currents and ice. But large commercial ships of the modern era — with their big propellors — are a particular problem.
The turbulence washes away the protective mud, leaving parts of pilings exposed to water. That speeds decay of the wood.
Engineers estimate the structure could begin to tilt in three to five years, which Gamble said would be “the beginning of the end.”
The proposed ring of corrugated steel would shield the pilings from that turbulence.
AP video shot by Michael Hill and Julia Nikhinson |
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