How much dirt was removed?

The excavator loading a truck and transfer

In order to prepare for the foundation of the Center of Hope, we had to remove quite a bit of dirt that had been saturated from the rain. "How much dirt did we remove", you ask?  Here's how much:

448 truck and transfer loads were driven off the site with an average of 20 cubic yard of damp dirt per load (these are important numbers, remember them).

One cubic yard of damp dirt weighs about 2,500 pounds (The average weight of a cubic yard of soil)

One truck and transfer load of damp dirt would weigh about 50,000 pounds (20 cu./yd. multiplied by 2,500 lbs.)

448 truck and transfer loads of an average of 20 cubic yards of damp dirt weighing about 50,000 pounds each is the total equivalent of 8,960 cubic yards and 22,400,000 pounds.

So, how much is 8,960 cubic yards? What is it equivalent to? 

Well, it's more than the Goodyear Blimp...


All that dirt could fill almost three Olympic size swimming pools...

Ok, that's big, but how much is 22,400,000 pounds?

The largest animal on earth is the blue whale.  The average adult blue whale weighs about 300,000 pounds.  So that means we removed the equivalent of almost 75 blue whales - WOW!




As you can see, we removed a lot of dirt.  The Center of Hope will be built on a strong foundation.  We'll tell you about what replaced the dirt next time.