Bartlett Loop Road Work Protects Public Safety, Waterway
Mitigation in New Hampshire
Below green hills, streams meander through valleys, where small towns nestle. A landscape that is emblematic of the New Hampshire countryside. Though picturesque, this setting is also susceptible to flooding.
When the April 2007 spring rains fell on top of an 18-inch snowfall, extensive flooding damaged homes, businesses and infrastructure in the Town of Warner. However, local emergency responders and public works department crews had one less problem to deal with on Bartlett Loop Road.
A reconstruction project conducted after the 2006 Mother’s Day flood included measures that allowed the floodwaters from Willow Brook to flow through the culvert unimpeded. The measures were funded under FEMA Public Assistance 406 Mitigation program.
Prior to the mitigation work, a weather system dropped an accumulated 10 inches of rain and overwhelmed the 5-foot culvert under Bartlett Loop Road. The surging floodwaters pushed gravel fill and boulders downstream. A gaping hole replaced the roadbed. Floodwaters deposited hundreds of yards of gravel downstream in wetlands, changing the course of the stream over 160 foot reach.
“It was a continuing issue,” said Edward Mical, Emergency Management director for the town of Warner. “So we asked the question why keep spending money on rebuilding the road after every storm when we can spend a bit more to fix it right? And not even a year later it showed that it worked.”
Public Works Director Allan Brown remembered at one time a wooden plank bridge had covered Willow Brook. According to Brown, the flooding problem started years ago when the bridge was replaced with a 5-foot diameter culvert that allowed far less water to pass through.
He reported that over the years the road had washed out often, including four times in the wet year of 2005.
Brown and his crew worked with FEMA and the state to prepare an application for FEMA Public Assistance showing that the benefits of the mitigation would outweigh the cost. He estimated that each time the town repaired the road in a declared disaster they were reimbursed approximately $30,000 in Public Assistance funds. The environmental damage to wetlands caused by the deposit of road debris was also figured into the formula to meet the criteria for eligibility for the mitigation grant.
The mitigation measures which included a hydrology study, added an additional $31,000 to the estimated $63,898 total cost of the project. The work crew installed a standard aluminum multi-plate box culvert with much higher flow capacity. The crew installed a rubber membrane between the culvert and the road bed to prevent salt from corroding the aluminum culvert. And true to the thrifty nature New Englanders are known for, the project came in $8,000 under budget at $55,784, with Public Assistance providing a grant of $41,838 to the town for the project.
During the 2007 nor’easter Brown checked the Bartlett Loop Road, as he or his Public Works crew normally would during a storm, but this time he took pictures of the successfully mitigated culvert rather than setting out bright orange cones and “road closed” signs again.
“It makes you feel good to do something that works,” said Brown.
Last Modified: Wednesday, 27-Feb-2008 10:49:09 EST