Major road repairs to begin later this summer
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TweetA number of Haines Borough roads damaged by severe flooding and landslides in December 2020 have yet to be repaired.
But major fixes are slated to begin this summer, with more on the horizon for next year, borough public facilities director Ed Coffland said.
Projects to resurface and improve drainage on Young Road, Porcupine Trail Road and Totem Street are at the top of a list that includes 14 disaster-related repairs boroughwide.
Work on Soap Suds Alley, Beach Road, Piedad Road, Second Avenue and Cathedral View Drive likely won’t happen until 2023.
Each project has to go through 35%, 65% and 95% design plans, all requiring the planning commission’s approval, before going to bid for construction contracts.
Southeast Roadbuilders was awarded bids to repair Young Road and a retaining wall on Chilkoot Loop that floods nearly pushed over. Bids opened July 5 for the Totem Street project and the first phase of repairs on Porcupine Trail Road.
Apart from Beach Road, where a landslide destroyed homes and killed two residents, Young and Porcupine Trail roads sustained some of the worst damage in the December 2020 storm, as culverts failed and pavement washed out.
Construction on Young Road will involve laying new asphalt and adding an underground drainage system, rather than a drainage ditch, on the section of road that leads uphill from downtown.
“I think it will help a lot with the width of the road and drivability of it,” Coffland said.
The full scope of repairs on Porcupine Trail Road has yet to be determined, but Coffland said the first of three phases of construction will involve resurfacing five miles of the road.
Flooding and erosion have been consistent issues for that road, a multi-use logging, mining and recreation road that parallels the glacier-fed Klehini River between 26 Mile Haines Highway and Porcupine Creek.
A portion of the road close to the river continues to wash out. “We’re battling it as we speak,” Coffland said last week. That section of road won’t be addressed until phases two and three of the project, which Coffland expects will be designed over the winter and constructed next summer.
The $30,000 allocated this year by the Haines Borough Assembly for Porcupine Trail Road will go toward routine maintenance once the first phase project has been completed. “Right now the road is in such poor condition you really can’t maintain it,” Coffland said.
He said $30,000 would be needed each year to keep the road in decent shape. “If you don’t (spend that money on maintenance), it’ll deteriorate and we’ll be back in the same position,” Coffland said.
Totem Street – the rutted, potholed road at Fort Seward – will be resurfaced..
Coffland estimated the cost of damage to borough roads from the December disaster is between $10 million and $12 million. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will reimburse the vast majority of costs, Coffland said.
FEMA only covers repairs that bring infrastructure back to its pre-disaster condition and that reduce the risk of future damage.
ProHNS has done engineering and design work for each of the disaster-related repair projects.
“Once we get all these projects built, it’s going to be a huge improvement for a lot of the streets in Haines,” Coffland said. “Going forward we’ll be able to focus on the other issues we have.”
