State Department of Transportation Chief Inspector Kayla Krijgsman overseeing construction work Wednesday (Sept. 18) at the intersection section of Route 34 and Loughlin Road in Oxford.
OXFORD – Officials from the state Department of Transportation (DOT) said they plan to have Route 34 near the Stevenson Dam open again with a $1.2 million temporary bridge by Oct. 31.
The road has been closed in both directions at Loughlin Road since Aug. 18 when flood waters took out the bridge that passed over the Eightmile Brook next to the Housatonic River.
The flood waters rushing down a hill toward the Housatonic took out the 100-year-old bridge, which was supported by a large concrete arch, along with a swath of forest next to Roosevelt Drive. The bottom half of Loughlin Road also got washed away.
The video below from DroningAroundCT shows how the road and bridge looked between August and September:
“This was an aberration of a storm. There was a ton of water over-topping the bridge,” said John Lee, a DOT engineer, during a media tour of the construction site on Wednesday, one month to the day since the flood.
While the majority of the 30 state roads that were closed in the immediate aftermath of the storm have been reopened, the Route 34 bridge repairs have been challenging, officials said.
The flood waters on Route 34 at Loughlin caused a wider path of damage. Utility poles and lines that survived the flood had to be moved.
“We had to relocate the power lines because we’re not allowed to work within 10 feet of power lines, so we had to get Eversource to install a new pole,” said Jim Zaharevich, DOT project manager. “Many of the other roads damaged (by the flooding) had no utilities or drainage issues.”
The construction site on Route 34 in Oxford.
Route 34 is a heavily-traveled, 21-mile state road that can be used to get from Interstate 84 in Newtown to Interstate 95 in New Haven. Along the way it has ramps to Route 8 and Route 15.
The closure means that the 10,500 vehicles that use that section of Route 34 have had to find alternate routes – such as crossing into Monroe and Shelton.
The DOT hired Plainville-based contractors Manafort Bros. Inc. to handle the clean-up of trees, broken pavement and other debris from the Eightmile Brook.
About a dozen Manafort employees have been working on the site since a week after the flood hit, putting in eight to 10 hour shifts, seven days a week, to make repairs and prep the site for a temporary bridge.
Manafort has been working to rebuild the concrete abutments that will support the weight of the temporary bridge, which will be 83-feet long and 30-feet wide with two lanes of traffic.
Kayla Krijgsman, DOT chief inspector overseeing the day-to-day operations at the construction site, said the contractors have been building up layers of the washed away roadway, bringing in truckloads of process which is then packed down, and pouring footings for the temporary bridge.
In the coming weeks the temporary bridge will be assembled at the construction site and dropped by a crane over Eightmile Brook. It will be larger than the old bridge and allow more water to pass underneath it.
“We’re going to optimistically stick with that date (Oct. 31), and depending on factors out of our control, it could be a little before or after that, but hopefully no later than (Halloween),” Lee said.
The DOT does not have an estimate on when a permanent bridge will be built. It’s in the design phase, officials said.
The state DOT has an interactive map showing what roads are open and what roads are closed due to the flooding.
