American States investigating roads damaged by Irene + stills

Wednesday, August 31, 2011
BY KAREN ROUSE
STAFF WRITER

E-mail Specialists at the state’s transportation department have been surveying miles of damaged roads and bridges - many of them forced to shut down after sustaining damage caused by Hurricane Irene - including sections of Route 46 and 23 in Passaic County to the stunning collapse of a portion of Route 287 in Parsippany.

I-287 was damaged due to flooding in Boonton. “Route 287 is a prime example of a washout … when a flood will wash away the earth underneath the road and the road either collapses, or is at risk of collapsing and we have to close it down,” said Joe Dee, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation.

“It happens on roads when floods go by and take out the sub-structure,” he said. “Rapidly moving flood waters will just carry stuff away.”

The state agency after the storm responded to 670 roadway incidents – from snapped trees blocking lanes to downed lines and underwater roadways, Dee said.
No cost estimate has been determined, he said. But by Wednesday night, there remained three dozen ongoing road and bridge-related incidents that will require significant repairs, he said.

How long it takes to make repairs depends on the severity of the infrastructure damage, he said.

It’s not like fixing a pothole where they know what’s involved, said Dee.



“A case of major damage does require a close evaluation to assess the damage and come up with” a repair plan, he said. Consultants and in-house engineers are evaluating the extent of the damage, how much earth was removed and the stability.

In the case of 287, where the force of the floodwaters took the soil out from under the roads surface, the transportation department will put riprap – large rocks and small boulders – under the road to provide stability and form its substructure, said Dee.

Other roads that have a solid rock foundation may be able to be repaired by drilling a hole into the concrete and forcing in liquid mortar or concrete. “That’s for a minor repair,” he said.

The agency can’t always get to a road right away to make assessments, he said. “On 287, we had to let the waters recede. It was raging alongside the roadway. We couldn’t get to it.”

Tony Dorsey, spokesman for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials in Washington, D. C., said states could face infrastructure damage even after the waters have receded and the roads reopened.

“Roads need a solid foundation to function as intended,” he said.

States up and down the East Coast are approaching their flood-damaged highways much like a homeowner would size up her flood-damaged home, said Greta Smith, AASHTO program manager for construction and materials.

“If your house is flooded, you would want to have a structural evaluation of what was left,” she said. Engineers look for things like erosion in the materials, the stability of the remaining infrastructure and “the earth it’s build on” and whether the erosion will continue, Smith said.

Lacy Love, former transportation commissioner in North Carolina, where Hurricane Irene destroyed the highway that connects Cape Hatteras to the mainland, said roads can become spongy from taking in so much water, which can damage their integrity.

In some cases, the road could dry out, said Love, associate program director at AASHTO. In other cases, he said, “you can add things to soil like cement,” he said.

Dorsey noted that Hurricane Irene dealt state budgets a financial hit, too. “As state DOTs are trying to grapple with these calamities, they’re also having to worry about these whole issue of (federal funding),” he said.

Photos: Hurricane Irene Aftermath