USS Arizona Memorial repairs progress, no reopening date yet

HONOLULU – Repairs to the USS Arizona Memorial in Honolulu are progressing, but officials have not yet set a date to reopen the tourist attraction.

The National Park Service plans next week to announce the reopening date, The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported Thursday.

A malfunction with the concrete dock’s anchoring system forced the closure of the memorial for the past 15 months.

Exceptionally high tides in 2017 are believed to have dislodged concrete blocks sunk into the sediment of Pearl Harbor and connected by chains to the dock.

Park employees Thursday installed a visitor ramp for walk-on visits to the 105-foot (32-meter) floating dock. Workers this week also reinstalled the memorial’s bridge spanning 30 feet (9 metres) and weighing 4 tons (3.6 metric tons).

The more than $2.1 million repair also included the installation last month of 12 new straps to anchor the boat landing dock.

Nearly 1.8 million people visited the landmark in 2018. Park service spokesman Jay Blount said there has been “no point since May 2018 when this happened that there’s not been work being conducted” on the repairs.

“It’s a very complicated process that involves many steps, and it’s not as simple as going out and conducting the work in bhana few months,” Blount said.

There were 1,177 lives lost on the Arizona in the Japanese surprise attack at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

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Information from: Honolulu Star-Advertiser, http://www.staradvertiser.com