Spillway Road reopens

Courtesy Photo

Parish crews have spent the last few weeks backfilling damaged areas of Spillway Road and lining them with compacted limestone. The road is now open.

Spillway Road has been temporarily repaired, and the path through the Bonnet Carre Spillway opened to traffic at 5 p.m. on Monday.

The repair work, which included road base repair, materials and compaction, cost around $40,000 and was performed in house by the parish.

As the road stands now, it will be able to be used by school buses when classes begin next month, according to parish spokeswoman Renee Simpson.

The road was heavily damaged by the opening of the spillway in May. The force of the water eroded the road most severely near seven culvert crossings, about 70 to 80 feet in each direction from those crossings.

Though the road has been temporarily fixed, FEMA officials  recently toured the area and believe that the entire road must be redone, according to Parish President V.J. St. Pierre. The parish is hoping that federal government would pay 75 percent of the repair cost, leaving the parish to pay the remainder.

Simpson said there is no definite timeline on when the major road repair will begin, but said that it should be completed by the end of the year.

The road is an important corridor through the spillway, and serves as a pathway for hundreds of children during the school year. Others use the road to travel between Montz and Norco.

When the road is closed, motorists must use the heavily traveled Airline Highway as a detour.

Spillway Road is maintained by parish government, although the land that it passes through is federally owned. It was originally built as a state highway that served as a continuation of River Road.

When the spillway was opened three years ago, it caused almost $500,000 in damage to the road and the repairs took six months to complete because of delays caused by a pair of hurricanes.