Flying Disc Dropped in Miami Port Hole

Putting machine together will take three months

Can you dig it?

Maybe not, but Harriet can.

On Thursday, the 43-foot wide, four story cutting head of a tunnel boring machine was lowered into the hole that will be its Miami home for the next few years as it digs the Port of Miami Tunnel.

The tunnel will connect Watson and Dodge islands and create a bypass for trucks coming to and from the port.

Thursday was the first step in a three-month process just to put the machine - affectionately named Harriet - together.

Then the drilling begins some 125 feet beneath the surface and won't stop for about a year, officials estimate. The billion-dollar Port of Miami Tunnel project is expected to be complete sometime in 2014.

The project has already brought jobs and money to Miami, but public officials said even more of both are still to come.

"Once the construction is complete, many more new job opportunities will be created when the new tunnel is combined with the arrival of larger ships made possible by the port dredging project," City Commissioner Richard Dunn said.

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