After the storm

DOTD faced with daunting post-hurricane 'to do' list

By Angelle Bergeron

The Dept. of Transportation and Development's hurricane preparedness/response plan includes aiding in evacuation, waiting for the storm to pass and then moving back in to assess damages and begin repairs.

However, left with an estimated $31.7 billion in state transportation infrastructure needs, DOTD finds itself faced with its most daunting to-do list in history.

"It's all the kind of work we do in maintenance, but a lot more of it," said Gil Gautreau, structures and facilities maintenance administrator. However, the manner in and conditions under which maintenance and emergency repairs were performed was anything but routine.

"On the day of the hurricane, several people in my department showed up because they knew there was work to be done," Gautreau said. "Nobody had to ask them to work 16-hour days. They just knew it needed to be done."

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"I think the department responded excellently for both events," said Gordon Nelson, assistant secretary of operations. "We have a lot of employees with dedication that rose to the occasion and did an excellent job."

Indeed, many employees on the assessment and repair teams had either lost their homes or been dislocated due to the storms. "Normally, we have all maintenance and construction crews on standby, but for both storms, we actually mobilized maintenance people from north Louisiana to get roads cleared because it was such a massive undertaking," Nelson said.

"We still have people working for us who don't have housing. We are still trying to find trailers from FEMA to set up temporary housing."

At this point, DOTD still hasn't determined when the department will be finished with its portion of debris removal. "In the areas where we lost 100% of the residents, the Corps of Engineers is responsible for debris removal," Nelson said. However, DOTD, along with FEMA and individual parishes, is responsible for maintaining all of the state routes, many of which continue to be lined with debris from downed trees or residents clearing out storm damage from their homes.

"A lot of people don't know that in only four days the department had roads passable in Hammond, which was a massive effort because every road was blocked," Nelson said. To date, the department has spent $90 million on removing debris from state routes and it hasn't yet been determined where DOTD's debris removal responsibility ends and is shifted to FEMA, Corps of Engineers and/or parish contracts, Nelson said. The department is currently trying to coordinate a cutoff date for debris collection so those efforts may be concentrated in other areas.

"On the morning of the hurricane, some of my people drove on the I-10 with military escorts to check the elevated roadways," Gautreau said. After Katrina made landfall, flooding was so widespread, that bridge inspectors had to be helicoptered in by the National Guard to assess damage in many of the affected areas. "A good bit of flying took place with the state police, national guard, whoever would take us up," Gautreau said. "We had just finished doing bridge assessments (after Katrina) and then had to go back in after Rita and re-do assessments that had already been done."

More than one-third of the moveable bridges (about 120) in the affected areas were damaged and about 20 percent are closed to either marine or vehicular traffic. "If they were submerged, we certainly do have some electrical damage and the mechanical systems will have to be removed and cleaned," Gautreau said. "We also drove all of the fixed bridges to make sure there was no movement."

All of the contractors handling bridge repairs are in-state, Nelson said. Some of the emergency contracts were bid and some are enforce-account contracts. Secretary Johnny Bradberry estimated that 90 percent of all emergency contracts to re-establish normal operation of moveable bridges should be complete by mid-November at a projected cost of $15 million.

Although most fixed bridges in the affected areas did not sustain substantial damage, a few were hit really hard.

The most widely-publicized fixed bridges damaged by Hurricane Katrina are the Interstate-10 twin spans that connect New Orleans to Slidell over Lake Pontchartrain. Storm surge from Katrina caused extensive damage to both spans of the bridge, knocking 435 concrete segments out of alignment.

After initial assessments throughout the state system were complete, Gautreau concentrated most of his efforts as project manager for reconstruction of the critical east-west artery. "Several of us worked until midnight for nine days doing design specs so we could let the project for bid in nine days," Gautreau said. Working at that speed is "very unusual," he said, but necessity dictated extreme measures.

Boh Bros. Construction of New Orleans also worked at a breakneck pace, completing repairs to the eastbound span of the bridge 17 days ahead of schedule and at tremendous savings to the department. Boh Bros. won the contract with a low bid of $30.9 million and, even after receiving the maximum bonus incentive, delivered the project well below DOTD's $53 million project estimate.

"Several people from Florida DOTD came and discussed with us contracts, how they hired firms, etc.," Nelson said. Louisiana DOTD took the opportunity to benefit from what Florida DOTD had learned in the wake of Hurricane Ivan and the emergency repairs to the Escambia Bay Bridge.

"We realized the more information we could provide, the less risk the contractor would incur and probably give us a better price," Nelson said. "We had a good game plan. FDOT went through it and we wanted to learn from their experience. There was no sense reinventing the wheel." In January, DOTD will let bids for newer, higher spans across Lake Pontchartrain.

Katrina also caused 12 spans to shift on Louisiana Hwy. 1, the only route to Grand Isle and Port Fourchon, the source of much of the nation's energy supply. CEC of Lafayette won the emergency repair contract and "relatively quickly" had completed temporary repairs to accommodate light loads, Gautreau said. "They started right >> after the hurricane, but it took several weeks to fabricate the 66 neoprene barriers needed for the job. They jacked the spans and moved them over."

The Chef Bridge (along Chef Menteur Highway, east of New Orleans) will require a $1 million change in the ongoing contract to replace approaches because Katrina caused damage to the supporting soils, Gautreau said. "We will remove the approaches and replace with single spans at about the same cost as before," Gautreau said. All of the other necessary bridge repairs are comparatively small, he added.

Additionally, DOTD has been busy aiding affected areas with signal and signage repairs and assessing roadbeds for flood damage. "We haven't even assessed the road pavement and base damage due to flooding," Nelson said. He expects substantial damage to the roadbeds beneath LA 182 and all the state routes in New Orleans, even though it may not yet be visible. "We don't know how much material has dissolved from beneath the roadbeds," Gautreau said.

Depending upon the extent of the flood damage, bases may begin to fail in the near future, resulting in crumbling and rotting. "We've done assessments and estimates but not actual tests," Nelson said. "LTRC will do some testing, but we don't know when that will begin."

Although the magnitude of the problems caused by Katrina and Rita are greater than anything the DOTD has ever handled, Deputy Secretary Cedric Grant is confident that the department will continue its exceptional performance. "Our pledge is to rebuild the infrastructure for the state, and we don't mind being measured at the end of the day," Grant said. "I don't know if there is any place in the world that could go through this, but we know how to survive."