By T.J. Aulds
The Daily News
Published April 17, 2010
TEXAS CITY — Dozens of gravel trucks hauled loads up and down Texas City Dike Road — what’s left of it — on Friday. Bulldozers, backhoes and excavators moved dirt as the repairs to the dike finally began 19 months after Hurricane Ike hit.
Less than a week after the city hired SER Construction Partners for the $5 million project to repair and rebuild the roadway, construction crews were busy laying down fill and gravel to create a temporary roadway to allow access to construction equipment.
Reconstruction is expected to be completed by the end of October, city officials said.
“What you are seeing now will be a hundred times busier pretty soon,” said Tom Kessler, the recently retired public works director who is staying on with the city to see this project to the end. The construction firm was to have been working on a project in Houston, but when that was delayed, it sent all of its workers to Texas City, Kessler said.
The company started the initial site work a few days ago, even before meeting with city officials for a pre-construction meeting.
Work started at the end of the 5-mile-long pier. Crews will work toward the entrance in 5,000-foot increments, Kessler said. During the reconstruction, the dike will remained closed to the public because there will be too much equipment moving up and down the road increasing the risk of an accident, Kessler said.
Kessler said the project calls for the reconstruction of parking lots, especially those at the four boat ramps. The city will have to come up with the money for repairs to the ramps.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s funds for the dike are earmarked for rebuilding the road and the pavilion at the dike’s entrance. Those funds also can be used to replace trash cans and parking bollards near the dike beach.
Streetlights, restroom facilities, boat ramps and other amenities will have to be funded some other way, Kessler said. The streetlights will prove to be expensive because there are no plans to run power lines beyond the dike’s entrance. Kessler is talking with a company that has solar-powered lights, but the cost to install those lights had not been determined.
There also isn’t any money set aside to rebuild the two bait camps and lighted fishing pier wrecked by Ike. The owners of Anita’s Bait Camp at the dike’s entrance, the fishing pier at the end of the dike and Curl’s Bait Camp at the dike’s midpoint had their leases canceled, city officials said.
Mayor Matt Doyle said the city won’t consider new leases for businesses on the dike until after the reconstruction is complete, if at all.
The city plans to start charging a per-car access fee for the dike and the levee when the dike is open for business again this fall.
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