Advertisement

Wet weather hampering repair of flood-damaged roads

Wet weather hampering repair of flood-damaged roads

Wet weather isn't helping New Brunswick Department of Transportation and Infrastructure crews who are working to rebuild roads crumbled by flooding.

Damage caused by floodwaters and ice has closed around 75 roads in the province.

The main priority for repair is roads leading to communities that have been left isolated, followed by roads that carry the most traffic.

In Bull's Creek, just below Woodstock, a culvert overflowed, crumbling the road.

David Cook runs the backhoe on the old Trans-Canada Highway as part of the work to replace the culvert.

"Right now it's wet, and cold. If we could get a little bit of sun, it would be helpful," said Cook.

"But right now, with this rain, it's actually holding us up a little bit because we want to be able to save the material when we take it out, so we can put it back in. But due to the rain, if we were to dig it out, it would pretty be much useless. We'd have to actually haul in new material, and we don't really want to do that."

Colin Lawson, one of two truck drivers on the job, usually deals with concrete.

"I think it's quite busy, the DOT hasn't got time to do this job, so they've contracted out for us to, I guess," said Lawson.

With flood season still not over, the department says the bill for road repair looks like it is going to be substantial.

And the winter budget is reaching $68 million and counting. That is $1 million more so far than last year, and $6.5 million over budget.