Wind blade caravan deals with tough McCook corner

The fourth, fifth and sixth wind generator blades en route to a wind site in Minnesota pulled through McCook this morning. The first three came through Monday; a total of 18 will make the trip over the next week or so.

CLINTONVILLE, Wis. -- The left-hand turn off Highway 83 onto 6&34, at the viaduct on East Sixth in McCook, is one of the most complicated for a trucking firm carrying 131-foot-long wind blades from Houston, Texas, to Adams, Minn.

"That's one of our most difficult corners," Al Johnson of Badger Transportation, Clintonville, Wis, said Monday. Johnson's Badger and B&K Transportation trucks brought the first three of 18 wind blades through the intersection from the south on Monday and the second shipment today.

McCook will "see a regular diet" of the blades over the next couple of weeks, he said.

Each trip takes about 2-2 1/2 days, depending upon weather and traffic -- and corners, Johnson said.

The wind blades were manufactured in Denmark, Johnson said, and were then shipped to Houston. From Houston, Badger and B&K will transport them to the wind site at Adams, in southeast Minnesota.

Johnson said each blade weighs only 16,000 pounds. "We're high," he said, "at 10 1/2 feet." But it's the length that grabs attention and requires special handling.

Each blade is 131 feet long.

The blades are made of Fiberglas, with some aluminum at the hub end, Johnson said.

Johnson's trucking firm started dealing with the wind blades in 1999, he said, when the blades were 75 feet long. "They're 131 feet long now," he said, "and a new design out in December will be 170 feet."

"The wind blade technology is growing by leaps and bounds," Johnson said. "It's a fascinating technology."

The trucks -- with their shiny, propeller-like cargo -- rumbled through McCook along B Street, and then pulled back onto Highway 83 at the west junction.