LUTHERAN QUILTERS – Members of the Quilts for Comfort Group stand between pews draped with some of the 205 quilts they made, in the Sitka Lutheran Church Tuesday. The group made the quilts for five local non-profits and one in Anchorage. The remaining quilts are sent to Lutheran World Relief which distributes them to places around the world in need, such as Ukraine, as part of Personal Care Kits. Pictured are, from left, Helen Cunningham, Kathleen Brandt,Vicki Swanson, Paulla Hardy, Kim Hunter, Linda Swanson and Sue Fleming. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
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Daily Sitka Sentinel
Better Weather Brings Out Highway Crews
By TOM HESSE
Sentinel Staff Writer
Construction crews were working today to take advantage of the midweek break in the weather to get back on track with the $20 million repaving of Halibut Point Road.
ASRC McGraw flagger Lisa Bolt stops traffic on a stretch of Halibut Road near Cascade Creek this afternoon. Work on the state highway is picking up with the recent break in the weather. (Sentinel Photo)
Weeks of rain have narrowed the construction window on the project, already set back nearly a month by problems related to concrete patches in the old pavement. Al Clough, Southeast Region Director for the Alaska Department of Transportation, said workers spent the last two weeks simply trying to keep the road drivable, let alone to pave, where the pavement has been removed.
“Once it’s ground up and it starts raining on it then it’s just a real pain in the neck,” Clough said.
The paving process involves four parts, the first of which involves grinding up the old blacktop pavement. That’s how far crews had gotten on the two-mile stretch of road just past Sea Mart when the skies opened up. Clough said the contractor was then forced to do whatever was possible just to make the road drivable, because the second part of the paving process can’t be done in the rain.
That part of the process involves mixing the ground up particles of the old pavement with, among other things, dry concrete and laying it down as a road base. The mixture is called crushed asphalt base course and it has to be laid down dry.
“That forms a very durable base for the new roadway to be constructed upon. Unfortunately, that product, the cement, can only be added in essentially dry conditions,” Clough said.
Once the base course in laid down, a layer called asphalt treated base (ATB) goes in, which can be done in wet conditions. The last part is the final top coat of hot mix asphalt,which also needs to be installed in relatively dry conditions.
The problem is that conditions haven’t been very dry in Sitka and the calendar is turning quickly to fall and the start of the real rainy season.
The DOT has fielded a number of complaints on the project recently, and Clough said he understands the frustration. The concrete patches that forced work to stop set the project schedule back, and Clough said the weather has just made things tougher.
“It certainly has not been a typical August anywhere in the panhandle,” he said. “It’s just slowed things down and there’s not a darn thing we can do about it.”
One thing crews are doing is to do as much as possible on the nice days. Clough said the DOT is taking steps to speed up the process, including bringing in an additional asphalt pulverizer from Prince of Wales.
“We actually put in a change in the contract that actually doubled the grinding capacity. They’re now able to grind at a much faster rate so when the weather does cooperate they’re able to grind much faster,” he said.
A plan is in place if the total job is not finished on schedule. Clough said the road would not be left unpaved, but instead a temporary layer of ATB, which can be applied in the rain, would be put down.
“If we totally got snookered by weather we could go out there and install a thin layer of ATB that would essentially be sacrificial and just kind of button it up for winter.”
“We’re not to that yet but that would sort of be the ultimate fallback,” Clough said. Road contractors in Juneau had to take that step this past winter because they ran up against the weather deadline, he said.
Clough said paving late into the year is not an option because dropping temperatures could affect the quality of the pavement.
That said, Clough is hoping the Sitka job doesn’t come to that.
“I’m still optimistic, especially with getting the change in the weather this week. We’ll just keep plugging away with the five and a half weeks left to finish it,” he said.
With the improved weather Tuesday and today, Clough is hoping crews can get through the third step of the paving process on that two-mile stretch past Sea Mart.
“What we can tell the people in Sitka is we are working the best we can to get this project completed this summer, and if the weather cooperates we’ll be doing everything we can to get that road done.”
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20 YEARS AGO
March 2004
Advertisement: Tea-Licious Tea House & Bakery 315 Lincoln Street Grand Opening! Freshly Baked Scones, Cakes & Pastries Innovative Salads, Soups & Sandwiches Harney & Sons Tea. Lunch * Afternoon Tea * Supper.
50 YEARS AGO
March 1974
Photo caption: National Republican Chairman George Bush takes a drink of water offered by Jan Craddick, Sitka delegate, during the Republican convention held here. Mrs. Craddick explained to Bush that the water was from Indian River, which means, according to local legend, that he will return.