Busy times in the neighborhood
May. 29th, 2025 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elizillaThey are building a new fire station on the corner of our street. The street out front of it is closed, has been for several weeks. It was supposed to only be fully closed for three weeks, then one lane for another three weeks. But as usual for roadworks, it is behind schedule. It was fenced for two weeks before they even started digging. This is week four and they had dug up one lane. Then on Tuesday afternoon they hit a water main. We were there looking at the activity when it happened. Huge geyser of water, hitting the eves of a two story building across the street with enough force I could see the shingles starting to lift!
The public works guys were there within minutes and were able to turn the water off, and fix it super fast. But they had to put dirt back in the hole to support the pipe, before turning it back on. The fallout seems to have been minimal. The pub is normally closed Mondays but this week they had their closed day on Tuesday, due to the holiday. And the diner had just closed, since they only serve breakfast and lunch. So the water shutoff wasn’t as big an inconvenience as it could have been.
But they were out there until nightfall, dealing with the aftermath. And continuing to deal with it since. My heart was in my throat watching the equipment move around on the pavement next to the hole, and seeing the dirt failing away from under the pavement. I am so glad I didn’t see an excavator fall in!
One of the workers told us that the big hole is for the sewer hookup. But the city records of where that pipe is, were wrong, so they kept digging deeper and wider to find it. All the other buried utilities (water, gas, phones) are higher than the sewer, so they had to dig around them. There is also a forest of overhead wires there. It’s the oldest part of town so it’s thickly crisscrossed and poorly documented. When they eventually found the sewer pipe it was way farther down than expected, and encased in undocumented ancient concrete. They couldn’t send guys with jackhammers into the hole because of safety, the sides of the hole keep caving in. They put in a lot of steel plates to try to hold back the dirt but didn’t get it stabilized until this morning.
They had multiple trucks pumping the sand and water slurry out, and trucks bringing more and more steel structure stuff to wall the sides of the hole. It is a cramped site and there was a lot of traffic disruption. Every time they needed a piece of equipment on the other side of the hole, it had to go around the block, past our house. And there were so many pickup trucks crammed in around the fence, with surveyors and engineers and utility workers and whatnot.
Meanwhile on the rest of the site, work continued. They set up forms and poured truckloads of concrete.
And in the completely unrelated construction site on the other side of the creek, the geo pier work started. Many truckloads of limestone chips were being delivered and the drilling rigs were going up. They are going to build 18 condos in two 3.5 story buildings, over there.
And our neighbor who lives right outside the construction site is moving out. This has its own story, but it added to the press of activity and trucks. With all this going on, I didn’t even see the delivery trucks that cram into that part of our street on a normal day. Maybe they parked farther away and made longer trips with their dollies.
Someone asked me if it’s nice and quiet with the street closed to through traffic. It was, until this week. But today sure wasn’t quiet!
The public works guys were there within minutes and were able to turn the water off, and fix it super fast. But they had to put dirt back in the hole to support the pipe, before turning it back on. The fallout seems to have been minimal. The pub is normally closed Mondays but this week they had their closed day on Tuesday, due to the holiday. And the diner had just closed, since they only serve breakfast and lunch. So the water shutoff wasn’t as big an inconvenience as it could have been.
But they were out there until nightfall, dealing with the aftermath. And continuing to deal with it since. My heart was in my throat watching the equipment move around on the pavement next to the hole, and seeing the dirt failing away from under the pavement. I am so glad I didn’t see an excavator fall in!
One of the workers told us that the big hole is for the sewer hookup. But the city records of where that pipe is, were wrong, so they kept digging deeper and wider to find it. All the other buried utilities (water, gas, phones) are higher than the sewer, so they had to dig around them. There is also a forest of overhead wires there. It’s the oldest part of town so it’s thickly crisscrossed and poorly documented. When they eventually found the sewer pipe it was way farther down than expected, and encased in undocumented ancient concrete. They couldn’t send guys with jackhammers into the hole because of safety, the sides of the hole keep caving in. They put in a lot of steel plates to try to hold back the dirt but didn’t get it stabilized until this morning.
They had multiple trucks pumping the sand and water slurry out, and trucks bringing more and more steel structure stuff to wall the sides of the hole. It is a cramped site and there was a lot of traffic disruption. Every time they needed a piece of equipment on the other side of the hole, it had to go around the block, past our house. And there were so many pickup trucks crammed in around the fence, with surveyors and engineers and utility workers and whatnot.
Meanwhile on the rest of the site, work continued. They set up forms and poured truckloads of concrete.
And in the completely unrelated construction site on the other side of the creek, the geo pier work started. Many truckloads of limestone chips were being delivered and the drilling rigs were going up. They are going to build 18 condos in two 3.5 story buildings, over there.
And our neighbor who lives right outside the construction site is moving out. This has its own story, but it added to the press of activity and trucks. With all this going on, I didn’t even see the delivery trucks that cram into that part of our street on a normal day. Maybe they parked farther away and made longer trips with their dollies.
Someone asked me if it’s nice and quiet with the street closed to through traffic. It was, until this week. But today sure wasn’t quiet!
no subject
Date: 2025-06-02 04:16 pm (UTC)I'm waiting for CATA to pull all of our buses off the street and issue helicopters to us.
-R
(the new state bird is the detour sign)
(no subject)
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