[Stuart Carlton]
Teach me about the Great Lakes, teach me about the Great Lakes. Welcome back to Teach Me About the Great Lakes, a twice-monthly podcast in which I, a Great Lakes novice, ask people who are harder and smarter working than I am to teach me all about the Great Lakes. My name is Stuart Carlton and I know a lot about double-touch curling and huge Canadian controversies when it comes to whether or not they accidentally, well accidentally, let's be honest, purposefully flicked the stone past the hog line.

But I don't know a lot about the Great Lakes and that's the point of this here show. And we're joined today by the one, the only, the special Megan, the lake lover. Megan, what is up?

[Megan Gunn]
Hi Stuart, it's Mardi Gras.

[Stuart Carlton]
It is Mardi Gras.

[Megan Gunn]
So everything is great.

[Stuart Carlton]
It's wonderful. I've got a Mardi Gras show tonight. We accidentally scheduled a second gig tonight.

I didn't schedule it, someone else did. So we'll find out, depends on certain family things whether or not we'll be there. But yeah, at the Knickerbocker, Indiana's oldest saloon.

[Megan Gunn]
Oh fun. The last show was great, but that's not what this show is about.

[Stuart Carlton]
That's not. This show is about asking Megan questions. Megan, we got to ask Megan questions.

This was from a listener, Dave, believe it or not. We're going to be talking about a bridge today, which is why I picked this question out of the dozens of questions that we had submitted. And that is this, do you have a favorite card game?

[Megan Gunn]
I do. I do. It is Skippo.

[Stuart Carlton]
What?

[Megan Gunn]
A card game is by...

[Stuart Carlton]
Skippo?

[Megan Gunn]
Yes. I think it's in the Mattel family of cards.

[Stuart Carlton]
The Mattel family.

[Megan Gunn]
But it's like, you have these piles, you have your stockpiles, and your goal is to get rid of your cards the fastest. I had an eight-year-old teach me, teach me and my partner at a summer camp years ago. It was like, if she can do it, I can figure this out.

That's true. And it's been my favorite game since.

[Stuart Carlton]
Really? So you play with a regular deck or it's like one of these specialty deck situations?

[Megan Gunn]
Specialty decks. Yeah.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah. We've been playing this one called Flip Seven, which is another specialty deck, but it's kind of like blackjack in that you, you can hit or stay. But it's the kind of thing where you add up total points over the hands.

And if you get down a little bit, you have to start playing really high variance strategy to catch up. You have to start hitting like mad. And so I got down in the first couple games just by coincidence.

And so I, then I started playing really aggressively hoping I could win. And I didn't, but now my kids think I'm really terrible at this game. They're like, man, you're so bad.

And I'm like, but it was a high variance strategy. That's the nature of high variance strategy. Anyway, they weren't impressed.

So I get routinely owned in Flip Seven by my children, which is, which is fine. It's fine. Anyway, it's not why we're here though.

We have an awesome guest today. We're going to talk about the Mackinac Bridge. Have you ever been on the Mighty Mac, Megan?

[Megan Gunn]
I have, but like a bazillion years ago, like I was a small child when I was on the Mackinac Bridge.

[Stuart Carlton]
Really? So you didn't go to the Great Lake Sea? Oh, I bet you weren't with Sea Grant at that time.

The network meeting up in, oh gosh, wherever it was. Was it in Oten? No, it was, anyway, we went to a network meeting and we went over Mighty Macs.

That's the one time I've been on Mighty Mac. And they have like the radio station you can tune into.

[Megan Gunn]
Oh, that's cool.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah. Anyway, but you know what? Why am I talking to you about this?

Nothing personal. There's someone much more exciting. Our guest today is Kim Nowak.

She's the bridge director of the Mackinac Bridge Authority, which is a cool title, much cooler to title than any of mine. And she's here to tell us all about this cool bridge. Kim, thank you for coming on and teaching me about the Great Lakes.

[Kim Nowak]
Oh, you're welcome. It's my pleasure.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah. All right. So the Mighty Mac, as most people call it, is this really cool bridge that extends between Michigan's lower and upper peninsula.

So between America's high five and the UP. How long is this bridge anyway?

[Kim Nowak]
Well, if you talk to the designer of the Mackinac Bridge, Dr. David Steinman, he always called it the five mile bridge. It's actually between four and five miles from shore to shore. So he was including some approach work and things like that.

So we still like to call it the five mile bridge.

[Stuart Carlton]
Might as well. I've always thought it was interesting how Denver is exactly 5,280 feet above sea level. I think sometimes there's, you know, a little bit of massaging in the numbers.

That makes sense. And so what's the purpose? Is it just to kind of connect those two places, like to help people get from the LP to the UP?

[Kim Nowak]
Well, yeah. I mean, there wasn't a connection there until it opened in 1957. So people had to take ferry boats.

They had to take private boats. They had to take horses in the winter or dog sled team in the winter. So it was a hard thing to go between the peninsulas back then.

So we really needed that connection.

[Stuart Carlton]
People take dog sleds? Hold on.

[Kim Nowak]
Yeah. Pictures of dog sleds going back and forth on the ice.

[Megan Gunn]
Wow. I mean, that's got to be scary because as we learned in our last episode, the ice levels can vary and you just never know. But OK, neither here nor there.

[Stuart Carlton]
Dog sled is not a notoriously reliable mode of transportation, I would think, or at least not with our dog. Well, our dog is no longer with us. But anyway, OK, so they built in 57.

So this was this era of like the beginning of huge publics. Well, not the beginning, but during that era of huge public works projects. Right.

How do they get how do they how do they get funded? Like who built it? This is after the New Deal.

Well, after the New Deal. So what was what's the story on how it got built?

[Kim Nowak]
Well, they gathered the funding through bonding. And so people paid, bought the bonds to build the bridge. And it was almost 100 million dollars worth of bonds to get the bridge project built.

And so they gathered the money and hired the contractors and went to work.

[Megan Gunn]
Wow. So this was a bridge that like the the community saw and wanted a need for it. And so they they contributed their their own personal monies.

[Kim Nowak]
Yeah, it was more than just the local community. Obviously, it was a statewide effort. And perhaps people from around the country donated to this project.

Participated in the bonds that were then later paid off to them.

[Stuart Carlton]
How long was the building process?

[Kim Nowak]
It started in the spring of 54, and they opened it in the fall of 57. So it was for this size of a project. It was very quick.

[Megan Gunn]
It seems like it. And it's it's been up ever since. There have been no issues or repairs or.

[Kim Nowak]
We're repairing the bridge all the time with our maintenance crews. You know, there's been things that needed to be repaired ever since it was built. And so we keep replacing parts and pieces.

We keep the paint in good condition with our spot painting crew. And we do larger projects on the bridge. So but there are some parts of the bridge that are original.

So quite a few, actually.

[Megan Gunn]
That's incredible.

[Stuart Carlton]
Interesting. And so so what's so I mean, rust is a deal, but you got to keep painting it. And it used to be lead paint.

Right. And so there was a big my understanding is based on my extensive research that there was a huge like 20 year painting project to carefully dispose of that. Were you around for that process or is that?

[Kim Nowak]
oh Yeah.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah.

[Kim Nowak]
Yeah. I did painting projects ever since I started here back in 2002, and we finished them in 2021. So chunks of the bridge and the primer on the bridge was a lead based primer.

And so MDOT had a great effort to get all the lead off of the bridges around the state and the Mackinac was one of those. And so those projects had to be contracted out to large contractors and they sandblasted the lead paint off, captured it because it's a hazardous material and then put a new system on that had zinc in it instead of the lead. So it was a huge collection of projects to get all that done.

[Stuart Carlton]
Holy smokes. And then I can only imagine because you can't be dripping lead into the lake, right?

[Megan Gunn]
Right.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah. Oh, that lead paint. Anyway, lead.

It makes you wonder what do we have now that then subsequent generations are going to say, I can't believe you're using that material.

[Kim Nowak]
Right. Nobody knew how dangerous it was back then. They didn't have to wear any special equipment to work with the lead.

[Megan Gunn]
Oh, my goodness.

[Kim Nowak]
It was just not known that it was such a bad a bad product to use. And it did a wonderful job at keeping the rust off the bridge.

So that's why they kept using it for so long until they realized that it was a health hazard and an environmental hazard.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah. A huge one, too. Okay.

So you go across the bridge and you tune in. You have a local radio station, right? AM logo on your dial or whatever.

And it gives you a little touristy spiel on the mighty Mack. I can't remember it, but you can hear it more than once. Like you can listen through depending on traffic several times as you cross over the bridge.

[Kim Nowak]
We have a station that broadcasts on the south end and one on the north end. And it'll give you the touristy message as long as there's no severe weather to report. But if you're out here during weather, we'll be talking all about the weather and what you need to do to stay safe when you cross.

[Stuart Carlton]
Because the bridge like you mean safe on the bridge because it wobbles, doesn't it?

[Kim Nowak]
Well, it does not wobble. No, erase that. It moves.

It's all flexible and it's made to be flexible. And it moves in the direction of the wind when the wind blows and then it moves back when the wind subsides. So it's made, it's like hanging something from a clothesline.

So the bridge is made to be very flexible like that. Our radio station will tell you what to do in high winds and whether you need to pull over or if you have a high profile vehicle or whether you can keep going across or if you need to stop and not go across if the winds are really terrible.

[Megan Gunn]
And that just makes me think that, I mean, it was built to last if it's going to be moving with the winds versus something that's like more of a hard structure and a wind or something is going to come through and just knock it down. So they were thinking when they built that.

[Kim Nowak]
They were definitely thinking. And that's back to Dr. David Steinman who worked on over 400 bridges in his career all over the world. And he used all the tricks that he learned on the Mackinac Bridge.

And so it has to be flexible for wind. It has to be flexible for temperature changes because a couple of weeks ago, we were well below zero. And then in the summertime, we'll get up 90, 100 degrees.

And so it has to be able to expand and contract with all that. And then with the heavy loads we put on it with our trucking industry, it has to be able to flex with all the heavy loads. So it's really a cool engineering structure.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah. Let's do some stats. I was thinking about when I was in the CN Tower last time I was in Toronto.

I say that like I go to Toronto all the time as opposed to just the one time. But the CN Tower is this huge tower and it sways a bit. I mean, you've got to, right?

Because rigid things snap. And so that's the reason that's built in. Whether or not it's technically a wobble, I suppose.

But it's not a wobble. But let's go stats. Do you have stats on the annual traffic or how much trucking stuff goes through?

How often is this bridge used?

[Kim Nowak]
Well, it's used 24 hours a day. We have to have it open and we have to have collectors, toll collectors available to collect toll 24 hours a day. So our traffic changes dramatically from summer to winter.

In the winter, we have low traffic. It's very nice and easy to take care of. But in the summertime, when everybody wants to come up for tourist season, the traffic is a big impact on our maintenance work that has to be done in the summertime.

So those two don't go together. We wish we had the low traffic at the same time we want to do our maintenance work, but doesn't work that way.

[Megan Gunn]
That would be really nice. How did you come to work with the Bridge Authority and what is your job like?

[Kim Nowak]
So I have a civil engineering degree and I'm from Michigan Tech up in Houghton. I'll give them a little plug. Go Huskies.

And I went to work for the MDOT right out of college. And I worked kind of all over the state in various capacities until I applied for the bridges, applied for the chief engineer job at the bridge back in 2002. And I got that.

So I was out on the bridge a lot during my chief engineer time here and taking care of the engineering maintenance work on the bridge. And then in around 2019, I took the job as the bridge director. And so now I oversee the whole facility here, which includes the maintenance engineering and our financial teams and our toll collection staff.

So there's several managers that are under me and manage their departments. And we have between 90 and 100 employees that work here.

[Megan Gunn]
So then do you spend a lot of time on the bridge or do you just kind of oversee the people that are doing the work then?

[Kim Nowak]
Yeah, I don't get out on the bridge all that much anymore because we have engineers that work in the engineering maintenance area that can go out and look at different things. And our maintenance guys are out there every day in the summer that the weather will allow. So there's a lot of people taking care of things out on the bridge.

[Megan Gunn]
Yeah, and it's not part of your normal commute to have to go.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah, you have to drive over the bridge to get to the bridge.

[Kim Nowak]
That's So I'm 15 minutes up the road to the north and then maybe about half of our staff comes from the south. So they do have to drive over the bridge to get to work every morning and evening or on the midnight shift because we have staff here 24 hours a day.

[Stuart Carlton]
Oh my goodness, that's something else. No, so you have people who are driving at midnight. So you have this great, I assume it's for rain.

It lets the rain through or snow or whatever. But I don't know. But you have people who are driving at midnight with that grate.

It can be kind of scary.

[Kim Nowak]
Well, some people think it's scary any time of the day. I can tell you that we don't have accidents caused by the grating itself. It's very safe.

It was put on there for many different reasons. And one of the side effects is it does let the rain go through. But unfortunately, that puts the rain down on the steel that's down below it and leads to rust down there.

But it was built and designed by David Steinman again because it lets the air flow through. That's the main reason for the grating. And if you want to do some research into a bridge that did not have grating, that's the Tacoma Narrows Bridge that shook itself apart in 1940.

And it was a little bit smaller bridge and it had a solid surface on the deck. And the wind could take it and flutter it just like a ribbon. And so it crashed into the river.

And so that was what David Steinman was up against when he designed the Mackinac Bridge, which was going to be longer and taller and more wind and all that.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yep. And the weather and everything.

[Kim Nowak]
Right. And he said, I can do it. I know how to do it safely.

And so he did. So part of that design involved that grating in the center two lanes where the wind can't push on anything. It flows right through.

And the other reason he put the grating on there is it's relatively lightweight. So it doesn't add much weight to the bridge, but it can carry a heavy load. And so it didn't add to the dead load of the bridge, but it did take care of that live load we needed to handle with the heavy traffic.

[Megan Gunn]
Do you have any favorite stories about the bridge, like famous people crossing or is there an icon or maybe something of an icon of the Great Lakes or the state of Michigan?

[Kim Nowak]
Well, you know, we find that the bridge kind of advertises itself just in being such a beautiful structure and being a connection in this tourist area. I mean, it really advertises itself and people like to use it on their advertisements and in their logos and whatever. So we do not need to do very much advertising, but there are a lot of stories about the bridge.

And a lot of things, when I started thinking about what stories I might like to share, some of those are related to Labor Day, our Labor Day Bridge Walk that we do once a year. And all kinds of things happen on Labor Day. I've been out there and seen people get engaged multiple years, you know, where the whole crowd will stop and somebody will get down on one knee and then the whole crowd will cheer.

And so that's really heartwarming. And then different celebrity type people have walked the bridge. We had George Bush walk and that was quite a deal with how to handle all his security and whatnot.

And the governor always walks or the lieutenant governor, so we have to handle that. But the bridge walk is a time for a lot of good memories, I think, that people create when they walk the bridge.

[Megan Gunn]
Now, somebody that's getting back into running, do they walk the five miles and then come back the five miles? Or do they walk the five miles and somebody, like when you're like shutting off the news or something, yeah, and then somebody picks them up from the other end?

[Kim Nowak]
Well, we used to do that where we bus people back and forth and then they walk the full length. But now we have a scheme where you can start at either end. You can walk as much or as little of the bridge as you want.

We have a group of people that does walk all the way across and walk back, and those are called the double crossers. And then many people walk to the center of the bridge, turn around and go back to their car. Or, you know, if you can't walk very far and you still want to say you did it, you can just walk a small portion, turn around and go back to your car.

So there's something for everybody here nowadays at the bridge walk.

[Stuart Carlton]
I think you could actually, it could be a personality test thing, thinking about it. So if you're going to walk one length and then get a ride, do you get the ride in the beginning? And then, or do you get the ride at the end, right?

I think that that might say something, yeah.

[Kim Nowak]
Either way, you can do it either way, but you've got to make plans if you want to do that.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yep. So is that the only time I can walk the bridge? Or if I want to take a dog sled or walk, is it just Labor Day or is there a walking lane?

I don't remember walking.

[Kim Nowak]
Only Labor Day. And don't bring a dog, please. Don't bring a dog.

Unless it's a seeing eye dog or a service dog.

[Stuart Carlton]
Sure, sure.

[Kim Nowak]
Because it's five miles across and there's no trees for the dogs to use or firephydrants for the dogs to use. You know, you don't want that. It's really messy, really fast.

[Stuart Carlton]
I don't want to mess up the zinc paint.

[Kim Nowak]
Yeah, you wouldn't want to mess up that. And so, yeah, it's the only day that you can walk across, but it's a beautiful day. And we close the bridge to public traffic, so there's no traffic going by you as you're walking.

It would be a nice, quiet day. And the last few years we've had beautiful weather, so it's really been enjoyable. Lots of happy people.

[Megan Gunn]
I love that.

[Stuart Carlton]
All right. And so what is the future of the bridge? So, I mean, most of your job is maintenance, which is hard enough, right?

I mean, it's just constant. I can only imagine because you're fighting entropy and entropy is a rough opponent. But are there new projects or improvement or education stuff that you have coming up?

What's the future?

[Kim Nowak]
You know, we look at our projects and we maintain like a 20-year rolling plan of projects in order to do our financial planning. And I've even seen us look out like 35 years so we can capture all those big projects that are down the pike. And we do have some big deck replacement projects coming up in 10 years or so that we've been planning for those for years.

And we look at how much money we're going to need because we get no state tax money or federal tax money. It's all tolls that we collect. So we look at those big projects and we try to build up our piggy banks so we can pay for those big projects.

Yeah. And so a big deck replacement project or several projects related to deck replacement starting in another 10 years. And then our normal maintenance, which as you said, is every day we can get out there, that the weather's good, we are out there.

[Megan Gunn]
Wow. So just thinking about how I-65 is our main road and they're always doing construction and it is a pain most of the time. Does the construction interfere with the traffic at all?

[Kim Nowak]
Well, we try to work hard not to let that happen. So we know pretty much any hour of any day what that traffic's count is going to be because we have so much historical information. So we know that when it gets up past a certain amount in each direction that we can't tolerate any lane closures anymore.

It will slow the traffic. And so our construction maintenance folks, they have to get off the road and they have to try to find something, some work to do that's not out in the roadway. So we need all the lanes we can get on Friday's northbound and Sunday's southbound specifically.

[Megan Gunn]
I love it.

[Stuart Carlton]
It's really interesting. Your job is really one of like logistics and data, right? And I'm trying to help minimize-

[Kim Nowak]
Logistics, data. Yeah. Because that traffic's always coming. It's always coming.

Traffic's always coming. Yes, it is.

[Stuart Carlton]
All right. This last question here, this is from Carolyn Foley. I can't remember her title, but she's also She couldn't be here today, but she's our Michigan correspondent, our Canada and our Michigan correspondent, Carolyn Foley.

And she wants to know, and this seems like a leading question, I'll be honest. She wants to know, is there anything better than watching the sunset with the bridge in the foreground?

[Kim Nowak]
Well, I'll say we watch a lot more sunrises around here because of the way the bridge is situated. And so, you know, just looking out the window in the morning and it's a beautiful sight. And we capture some of those images and share them on our X page.

And yeah, it's beautiful. It sure is.

[Stuart Carlton]
What a cool vantage point. Well, Kim Nowak, it's really interesting to hear you come on and tell us all about the Mackinac Bridge. Something that, like I said, I have been over. It's like four or five bucks.

People just go drive over it. It's fun. You get a little education, whatever.

Plus you get to go to the different P's. If you're on the UP, go to the LP, the LP, the UP, whatever kind of P you want to do, but don't let your dog pee. Anyway, the point is this.

That's not why we invited you here on Teach Me About the Great Lakes this week. The reason we invited you on Teach Me About the Great Lakes is to ask you two questions. And the first one is this.

If you could choose to have a great donut for breakfast or a great sandwich for lunch, which would you choose?

[Kim Nowak]
Well, do you want to know the specific place for the donut?

[Stuart Carlton]
Well, that's the follow up. But yes, yes. First, the general question.

And then we do want to know. I'm going to go pay my four bucks and go to a donut or sandwich shop.

[Kim Nowak]
Yeah, well, I always love a donut. It's a treat. Ever since grade school, we used to have donut day and it was like the greatest thing ever to have donut day.

And so I guess I never grew out of that. So I guess I would prefer a yummy donut. But I do have a couple of recommendations.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah, let's hear it. Let's hear it.

[Kim Nowak]
Okay. Mackinac City has a wonderful bakery, Mackinac City Bakery, that we love to get our donuts from. So we give them lots of business.

They supply donuts for us, for our Labor Day Bridgewalk. And we buy dozens and dozens to make sure our employees are fully loaded and ready to roll for the Labor Day Bridgewalk. And then sandwiches.

I have a favorite sandwich spot in Lake City, actually. It's on a lake. It's not on the Great Lakes, but I go through there a lot.

And so the bakery is called To The Moon Bakery. And they make the greatest sandwiches. So one of my favorite places to stop when I'm traveling.

[Stuart Carlton]
Excellent. All right. And I got this now, Mackinac Bakery and Cafe.

Is that it on LaGland Street? Is that the one?

[Kim Nowak]
Yeah, I believe that's it.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah. Okay. Now, wait a minute.

Why do they spell Mackinac with a W and y'all do it with a C? Oh, no, because they're wrong.

[Kim Nowak]
Actually, they are the only place that spells Mackinac with a W. All the other Mackinac's, Mackinac County, Mackinac Streets, Mackinac Bridge are with a C. And so I believe they wanted to be more phonetic.

[Stuart Carlton]
No, that makes sense. In an early episode of the show, when I just moved here, so the listeners probably know this by now, but it's very hard for me to actually pay attention to what's happening and run the show. We should have someone to run the show for us, but that's not the kind of budget we got.

And so I was reading something to a guest and I just read Mackinac phonetically as Mackinac. And I kept saying, even though I knew that wasn't it, but I just, I can't do two things at once. I can't walk and chew gum.

And I was trying to chew gum, ended up tripping. And so anyway, we had a good laugh at my incompetence. But so thank you to the Mackinac Bakery for spelling it so that I could read it, even if you're spelling it wrong.

[Megan Gunn]
So I would like to know, what is a special place in the Great Lakes that you'd like to share with our audience and what makes it special?

[Kim Nowak]
A special place in the Great Lakes? Well, I'm thinking of places you can see the Great Lakes, and there's tons of places around the Straits area that you can view the bridge. And any of those are wonderful.

I mean, even on the way to Cedarville, north of here, and you could see the bridge off way off in the distance from the shoreline up there. It's just interesting, the different views you can get. But my favorite places to be on the Great Lake are up in the Keweenaw Peninsula.

I think of that as the UP of the UP. Anywhere along those shorelines up there is always a treat for me. So my favorite places are up there.

[Stuart Carlton]
Very cool. We'll definitely have to head on up there at the UP of the UP. I like that.

[Kim Nowak]
Yeah.

[Stuart Carlton]
Well, Kim Nowak, Bridge Director of the Mackinac Bridge Authority. Thank you.

So this has been super fascinating. I'm not a big bridge guy, although I grew up in New Orleans, where we had at the time the longest bridge in the world in the causeway, which is 24 miles of bridge. I remember with my current wife and girlfriend, we drove across the causeway once.

That's something to do. How romantic. But anyway, thank you so much for coming on and teaching us all about the Great Lakes.

[Kim Nowak]
You're welcome. It was my pleasure.

[Stuart Carlton]
Well, there we go. Mackinac Bridge. So cool.

[Megan Gunn]
Yeah. I've not gone across it. Well, I don't remember going across it, but I would like to.

I would like to. And I had a, it made me every, like, as she was explaining it, it made me think about this student who was a technician in our lab who was terrified of bridges. And every time we would go past a bridge, even like a short one, she would roll the windows down so that she could escape if something would happen.

[Stuart Carlton]
She could jump. Yeah.

[Megan Gunn]
Yeah. And I think that she would have a heart attack before we got to the end.

[Stuart Carlton]
Well, it must be fairly common because a bunch of what Kim was like, no, no, the bridge is safe. It's fine. Stop.

Everything's okay. No wobble. Of course it's not a wobble.

It's a designed sway. We knew that. But yeah, it must be a pretty common thing is concern about bridges.

[Megan Gunn]
Yeah.

[Stuart Carlton]
Reminds me of when I was in Oregon for Sea Grant Academy, I realized it was the Pacific Northwest. It was like the most beautiful place I'd ever been almost literally, but I could never live there because there's the tsunami thing. Do you know about this?

So there's a huge fault line that is very overdue for a big earthquake. Now, overdue, it could be in this 10,000 years from now. And it might even lop off.

I don't know the details. We're going to get notes about it, but yeah, it's a big deal. And so they have all this earthquake and tsunami awareness in the Oregon coast.

And I was in Astoria, Oregon, and we were going across a bridge. And it occurred to me as I was on that bridge. So if there were an earthquake right now, like a D1, what would happen is I would sit there on that bridge for 20 minutes, and then I would die of the tsunami.

And so I was like, I can't live here. I can't live in this city for just that reason.

[Megan Gunn]
Knowing that it's coming, yeah, that's a little scary.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's exactly what happened. Literally, you'd be like, well, there was the earthquake.

Okay, well, that's a wrap.

[Megan Gunn]
This is it. I love you. I love you.

I love you.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah, you start making calls. And well, I was on my Sea Grant Academy class. I mean, but it wasn't the group of people I wanted to be stuck on a bridge for the rest of my life for waiting for the waves to come.

[Megan Gunn]
Yeah. Oh, man.

[Stuart Carlton]
Anyway, the bridges are cool. Like what a dream job. Actually, we should ask her about that.

Like she has a dream, maybe the dream job for so many people to get to be the bridge director. Are you kidding me? Anyway, what's something you learned about the Great Lakes this week, Lake Lover?

[Megan Gunn]
Oh, man, I wasn't thinking about it. I was just so fascinated about her knowledge of bridges. I just didn't think about like all that goes into just making sure that people are safe.

And I guess one thing that I learned is they use a lot of lead paint for years, but they do their best to catch it as they remove it, which is I feel like when we remove a lot of other things, it may not be as intentional that we're. Yeah, well, I mean, a lot of the way.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah, she didn't mention it. But one of the reasons they use lead paint is it tastes better, too. But no, no, it's really like she said, it was like a 20 plus year project to remove this because they were so intentional about it and so careful.

And I think that's really impressive to show the concern for doing it because, you know, another way to do it would be just to blast it off and let it ride, baby.

[Megan Gunn]
Yeah.

[Stuart Carlton]
But but that's something that's that's awesome. That is awesome.

[Megan Gunn]
What did you learn this week, Stuart?

[Stuart Carlton]
I learned about I never really thought about the logistics of dealing with a bridge like that. You know, this underuse 24 seven and like anything you want to do. And it's there's not a lot of room to spare.

Right. So anything you want to do is going to irritate somebody in terms of traffic or whatever. And, you know, people are not rational about that.

Well, some people are, but many people are not rational about that stuff. And so to me, just thinking and the amount of data they have, like they can tell you, you know, when traffic is likely to be highest and when it's likely to be lighter and then how to plan that. Yeah, that's really it's a really sober minded job.

It's a cool job, but like you really got to be thoughtful. So that's what I learned.

[Megan Gunn]
Sweet.

[Stuart Carlton]
Teach Me About the Great Lakes is brought to you by the fine people at Illinois Indiana Sea Grant, IISG, to you and me. We encourage you to check out the cool stuff we do at iisseagrant.org or at ILIN Seagrant on Facebook, Blue Sky, YouTube and other social media.

[Megan Gunn]
Our senior producer is Carolyn Foley and Teach Me About the Great Lakes is produced by me, Megan The Lake Lover Gunn and Renie Miles.

[Stuart Carlton]
Nattie has to have a job in there too. He's a producer also. Nattie, a big tune on Morrison.

[Megan Gunn]
Ethan Chitty is our associate producer and fixer and our coordinating producer is Ava Hale. Our super fun podcast artwork is by Joel Davenport and the show is edited by Sandra Sabota.

[Stuart Carlton]
If you have a question or comment about the show, maybe you want to ask Megan something. Teach Me About the Great Lakes at gmail.com or leave us a message on our hotline. That's 765-496-IISG.

Or if you want to send us a postcard, we love those postcards, or at least I assume we do, but you haven't sent us one yet. That's 195 Marsteller Street, that's West Lafayette, Indiana, 47907.

[Megan Gunn]
We have a fridge in our office and we put your postcards on our fridge.

[Stuart Carlton]
We do. We want your postcard on our fridge.

[Megan Gunn]
Yes. Thanks for listening.

[Stuart Carlton]
And keep creating those lakes.