Spring Street to reopen to traffic

South Spring Street will partially reopen today, Joe Charles, public works director said Wednesday afternoon while looking over the repaired culvert. All that is left to do is to lay some asphalt. "When we leave Thursday, at least one lane will be open," he said. The road, which was closed to traffic at 10 a.m. May 18, has been a challenge to repair, Charles said. It took four weeks to do the engineering and custom build the 66" concrete pipe that goes under the road. The largest stock pipe that was available was 60", which Charles said was not large enough to handle the volume of water that could be expected with a 25-year flood. Once the city received the new pipe the rains started and the area washed out four more times and on days that it was not raining there was often a foot of water running down the stream. He said that because the stream bed kept washing out the repair is much wider than after the first flood. Charles said that Vernon County's road and bridge crew was a big help in completing the project. It will take a little longer to have the road completely repaired since the one of the pieces of concrete pipe needs to be replaced.