The mad scramble of students and staff returning from summer vacation can be attributed to the long traffic delays caused by construction on Telegraph Road in the Victoria Avenue intersection. While the construction had been going on for months in that area, the discovery of an unmarked gas main in the way of construction threw the first day of school off long before it arrived.
Around 4 a.m. during the nightly scheduled construction, an unmarked gas main wrongly labeled by the gas company was unearthed and blocked where the construction workers were expected to connect a new pipe to one that already existed. The connection of the new pipe was one part of the main project to replace the waterline along Telegraph Road between Hills and Mills Road to improve water delivery to the westside. Because of the unexpected discovery, the regular schedule of being off the roads before the 8:30 a.m. school start time caused workers to be on the streets later than expected.
“We were supposed to be off the street by 6 a.m. that morning,” construction manager of Flowers & Associates Richard Craig said in a phone interview. “We didn’t get off the street until 11 a.m.”
To work around the gas main and install their new pipe underneath, extra parts were needed. These parts needed to be acquired quickly as the workers were trying to install the pipe and get off the streets as soon as possible since they were running behind schedule. Further delays were introduced in having to drive to local suppliers and retrieve the parts.
“Every worse possibility reared its ugly head that night,” Craig said.
While construction workers were working under pressure the morning of the first day back to school to install the parts and work under the gas main, staff and students were also nervously stuck waiting in their cars like first year English teacher Candice Hernandez, who ended up parking in the school’s back lot after waiting in traffic for 20 minutes.
“What needs to get fixed should probably get fixed. I just don’t think the beginning of the school year is the best decision,” Hernandez said. “But things happen that are totally out of our control.”
Assistant principal Tiffany Dyer, while not getting stuck in traffic, sent out an email to staff alerting them of the construction situation once it was apparent it would be an issue for them and their students.
“I wanted them to know so that they could potentially prevent themselves from being late as well, so that my staff could leave, potentially leave their homes earlier to get to work, but also that there would inevitably be students arriving late,” Dyer said.
The waterline project is scheduled to be completed before Thanksgiving bearing any weather or other unexpected delays.
“Whenever we are close by, I have gone to every one of these campuses before we get into an area where potentially we are impacting them,” Craig said. “I personally do my own outreach to at least find out what their obstacles are, what their concerns are [and] see what we can do to mitigate that.”
