Foundation Work underway - The Electrical Grounding System

A panorama photo of the site - photo taken soon after a heavy thunderstorm came through.
View looks from southeast to northwes with the highway on the right side (NW direction).

Work is getting in full gear on the foundation. If you look closely in the picture you will see a continuous line of 10" boards, these are the formwork that outline the footprint of the building and will hold the 10" thick concrete which will fill the entire area inside this formwork, resulting in the platea - an enormous large footer upon which the building will rest. Of course, before the concrete there is much work to be done that will require a couple of months to complete. 

89 columns are being fabricated using rebar. These require 10 20' pieces of 1/2" rebar and are tied together with 3/8" rebar. These will be positioned in place when rebar is being placed and tied together in the platea/foundation.

And because we want to be well grounded ...

Thermite Welding: Serious Soldering of the grounding wire 
- check out the video below:
 FIRE IN THE HOLE!

Currently a grounding system is being put in place that will ground all electrical devices, minimize the chances of static electricity  and offer the best grounding protection possible for the workers and patients as well as the electronic equipment that will be in the building. This includes a thick copper wire that runs the perimeter of the platea and is using a process called Exothermic or Thermite Welding which makes an excellent connection between the copper wire and the 10' (deep) copper grounding rods spaced around the building.  

A closeup of the form work and electrical ditch. This ditch runs the perimeter of the platea and is for a thick copper cable that has 10' grounding rods evenly spaced around the platea.

A 2 minute video of simply pounding a 10' ground rod 

into a compacted fill.

Making the connection using a
 thermite welding technique 
(very intense HEAT/FIRE!):