CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The chief engineer with the state Division of Highways is cautiously optimistic more than 100 flood repair jobs on the state’s highway system can be completed by the end of the calendar year.
“I really hope that we can do this in three or four months, but there’s an awful lot of work out there,” Jimmy Wriston told MetroNews Friday. “The roadway and bridge damage has topped $50 million.”
That damage is scattered throughout the 12-county flood zone. As of Friday, there were contractors working under emergency contracts on 22 projects with an additional 100 jobs in the final design stage, Wriston said.
“You can’t just go out there and put any old sized steel in for a pile wall or throw any old sized pipe or box culvert into the ground. You have to do a little bit of engineering because we don’t want it to happen again. When we put it in there we want it to stay,” Wriston said.
The other 100 projects should be ready for work in the next two to three weeks.
Wriston believes the response of the DOH since the water went down in the days following June 23 flood has probably been some of the agency’s best ever disaster work.
“When it comes to emergency work and disaster recovery and that type of thing–we may be the best in the country,” Wriston said. “Communication is the key.”
The 100 projects left to do “will run the gamut,” Wriston said, including slide repairs, washout repair, piling walls, rock buttresses, pipe installation, concrete box culverts, small bridge repairs and small bridge replacements, shoulder work, shoulder reconstruction, guardrail installation, striping and signal and sign replacement.
It’s possible state Route 4 from Clendenin to Clay could reopen this weekend. A section of the highway washed out north of Queen Shoals is still under construction but a detour around the work may be completed by Saturday, Wriston said.