Beginning at 7 a.m. Tuesday morning, Aug. 31, General Construction will begin the removal of the west bascule draw span on the South Park side of the Duamish River.

The floating crane and receiving barge will move into place early in the morning and workers will begin the tricky task of rigging the bridge span in preparation for lowering it onto the receiving barge.

The span will be taken down river to Elliott Bay and staged for disassembly.

The east bascule lief will be removed some point after Labor Day so as not to disrupt maritime traffic during the holiday weekend.

This note comes from King County Dept. of Transportation:

First South Park Bridge leaf expected to be removed this afternoon

The first giant leaf of the South Park Bridge is scheduled to be detached and lowered onto a barge sometime this afternoon Tuesday Aug. 31.

Prior to removal, nine steel cuts will be required to separate the leaf from the remainder of the bridge. Once the cuts have been made, the leaf will slowly be lowered onto the barge. This work is extremely complicated and may take a few hours to complete.

This process will be repeated when the second leaf is removed over the next few days. Both leaves will then be barged to another site for salvage and recycling.

During this first demolition phase, crews have also been demolishing vacant structures on county-owned property adjacent to the bridge to accommodate future construction staging. The work will set the stage for future construction of a new South Park Bridge when a funding package is in place.

NOTE: More photos from the demolition process will be uploaded as soon as we have them. Our reporter on the scene is documenting the process which is both complex and time consuming.