Kennedy Bridge and storm surge barrier

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Storm surge in the Geeste estuary (2018)

The Kennedy Bridge and the storm surge barrier in Bremerhaven are a combined hydraulic structure . The bascule bridge leads over the Geeste . The barrage protects the city from flooding by storm surges.

bridge

Opened Kennedy Bridge

The bridge was built only a little downstream from the Alte Geestebrücke from 1960. As a single-wing bascule bridge with six lanes, it relieves the old Geestebrücke (and the city center). With its clear passage width of 24 m, it enables shipping to the now closed shipyards on the Geeste and to the Elbe-Weser shipping route . The bridge is 28.4 m wide. The bridge hatch is 29.3 m long and can be folded up mechanically up to Beaufort 9. After John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963, she was given his name on January 30, 1964.

Barrage

Northern stem gates

The storm surge barrier is located under the bridge . After three years of construction, it was inaugurated on September 27, 1961. Two stem gate pairs can be closed in the event of threateningly high (northwest) storm surges . They are intended to prevent Mitte (Bremerhaven) from being flooded “from behind” despite the dykes . Just five months after the inauguration, the barrage prevented the greatest catastrophe in the history of Bremerhaven . During the storm surge in 1962 it stormed on the evening of February 16 with Beaufort 10. The water level was 5.85 m above sea ​​level . Without the dykes and the barrage, 80% of the urban area would have been flooded and the Bürgermeister-Smidt-Straße (Bremerhaven) would have been 2.85 m under water.

A new barrage is to be built in the course of raising the dike. With the calculated increase in the water level due to global warming, the dikes were raised to 8.4 m. The old barrage would then be flooded. The city administration currently favors the Geestevorhafen (in front of the Weser ferry pier) as the location.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harry Gabcke , Renate Gabcke, Herbert Körtge, Manfred Ernst: Bremerhaven in two centuries, III. Tape. 1948-1991 . Nordwestdeutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, Bremerhaven 1992, ISBN 3-927857-37-8 , p. 87 .
  2. ↑ Uwe Schnall: Kennedy Bridge / storm surge barrier , in: Lars U. Scholl (ed.): Bremerhaven - a guide to the history of the port . Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum / Ditzen, Bremerhaven 1980, pp. 68–69.
  3. ↑ Dirk Peters : The storm surge from 16./17. February 1962 in Bremerhaven. A summary of the events and comments from today's perspective . Niederdeutsches Heimatblatt, Bulletin of the Men from Morgenstern, January 2012, No. 745.

Coordinates: 53 ° 32 '18.4 "  N , 8 ° 35' 1.9"  E