The dual-span Crescent City Connection is a New Orleans landmark and among the most photographed bridges in the world.

Despite challenging conditions, New Orleans Local 130 members rallied to replace the bridges’ old lighting system with modern LED lights that change colors.

Deadlines were tight. Public officials allowed crews to work only during a fours-month period last year in the hot and humid Louisiana summer, when school was out and traffic would be least affected.

Some electricians were more than 100 feet above the cars passing by while installing the new lights. That’s no picnic, but it might have been preferable to what was beneath them.

Underneath the bridge, their union brothers were beneath the pavement in spaces not much larger than a closet. While peering down at the Mississippi River, about 170 feet below, they pulled the old cable, then installed new cable trays in tight areas.

“It was definitely where the rubber met the road,” said Local 130 member John Bilich, a foreman for signatory contractor Frischhertz Electric, who supervised work underneath the bridge. “That crew worked harder than any other crew I’ve ever seen.”

Plus, there were a few upset people to deal with. The bridges were never totally shut down, but many commuters didn’t care for the closed lanes, often expressing their displeasure at the construction workers themselves. New Orleans television stations aired their complaints, while also airing comments from state and local officials talking about the necessity of the work. The lights were virtually unchanged from the time each bridge opened and were damaged by Hurricane Ida in 2021.

“We got a lot of name-calling from drivers out there,” said Travis Jacob, a Local 130 member and general foreman for Frischhertz.

“It wasn’t for the faint of heart,” said Kenneth Mercadal, another Local 130 member who served as a foreman on the project.

Yet, as IBEW members have done for more than 130 years, they performed their work at the highest level, even in those sometimes-dangerous conditions.

Work was finished on the $23 million project ahead of time, traffic was back to normal by November, and the lights were fully functional by the Super Bowl in February, providing a stunning backdrop for Fox Sports and other news outlets on the scene.

And those Local 130 members said they would do it again — not just for the good wages, but for what the two bridges mean to New Orleans, the breathtaking way they frame the city and their importance to the entire transportation system along the Gulf Coast.

“To be able to say you changed the horizon of New Orleans forever is pretty cool,” Jacob said. “One day, my grandchildren will drive around and say, ‘Grandpa did that.’

“It was a once in a lifetime experience,” he added. “We had no issues with tardiness and absenteeism. Everyone we had wanted to be there.”

The original Crescent City Connection opened in 1958, with a second span opening next to it in 1989. They each are 13,428 feet in length — about 2½ miles — and the southernmost bridges to cross the Mississippi.

It’s difficult to overstate their importance in getting people around, not just in New Orleans but in much of the South. More than 63 million cars annually cross the bridges.

But that is just part of what makes them special. The cantilevered bridges frame the New Orleans skyline and are regularly seen in movies, television shows and portraits from the Big Easy. They have served as a way in and out of town when hurricanes and tropical storms close other routes, most notably Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

“When you see that big bridge, it’s almost like it stands off by itself,” Local 130 Business Manager Rodney Wallis said.

Wallis credited many of Local 130’s apprentices for stepping up and filling the jobs on site, especially when it came to transporting materials. The work wasn’t for everyone. The height and extreme conditions could be taxing both mentally and physically.

“The part you can’t anticipate,” Mercadal said, “is when you are on the bridge and you are working out there, it constantly shakes and vibrates. When a cement truck rolls by, you feel it.”

Keep in mind that Mercadal sometimes experienced that feeling while being tied off in a safety harness when installing the new lights, which had to be set at a specific angle. Even being off one-quarter of an inch would mess up the lighting pattern, he said.

Local 130 journeyman wireman Jeff Faulstich, another foreman for Frischhertz, said having the right tools and supplies on hand from the beginning was crucial. Finding replacements and getting them to the bridge in a fast manner was close to impossible.

“It had to be planned right,” Faulstich said. “You’re on a certain time frame. Once you’re there, you want to have all the materials you’re going to need to put the job in.”

Beneath the bridge, Bilich’s crew had to drill holes in the steel supports, using a specially made Milwaukee Tool hole punch that saved him from using what he suspects would have been thousands of drill bits.

The cable trays were lowered down the side of the bridge, where crew members would take them and pass them assembly-line-style down a catwalk to where they would be installed with a Unistrut framing system designed for the project.

“For a lot of the bridge, we couldn’t use a half-inch steel or 3-inch clip,” Bilich said. “We had to buy special beam clamps that were really large when you open them up.”

There were some long days. Crew members were instructed to drink plenty of fluids that kept them hydrated. They also were instructed to go back atop the pavement if they needed a breathier.

But Bilich said no one complained.

“I would tell them in the morning, ‘Guys, we need you,’” he said. “I need you to be up there swinging and hitting home runs. They stepped up and made it happen.”

Some of those drivers and commuters upset by the short inconvenience eventually came around, too.

Near the end of the project, Mercadal was handing tools to a crew working on a part of a bridge that extended over land. A group of women out for a walk noticed and asked them if they had been working throughout the summer.

“Yes,” a crew member responded.

“They said they had been mad and cursing about it,” Mercadal said. “But now that they saw it, they appreciated it. They said, ‘You guys really did a good job.’”

City officials celebrated the Super Bowl by making the lights red on one bridge and dark green on another, celebrating the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles.

Those kinds of moments were made possible by Local 130 members, who ensured that the landmark bridges will continue to light up the New Orleans sky.