Center gate to go up Tuesday
Published 9:00 am Monday, September 23, 2013
The floodgate at Center Street will go up starting at 6 a.m. Tuesday as part of an exercise to determine if the barrier still fits.
“It is a mock exercise,” Mike Pemberton, street department supervisor, said. “These gates are supposed to be exercised every three years. That is one of the violations we were written up on during the last couple of inspections. We hadn’t exercised any of our gates since 2005.”
The exercise is expected to last until noon as the gate goes up and is then taken back down. During that time the portion of Center Street that leads to the boat landing will be closed to traffic.
“When this gate was modified, it was widened,” Pemberton said. “None of the gate pieces were fitted to make sure they fit. That will be a learning curve.”
The exercise will allow workers to determine if all the pieces of the gate fit in place and how exactly the gate is assembled.
Officials from the Army Corps of Engineers will be at the site to grade the crews.
“We encourage people to come over and watch,” Pemberton said. “There might come a time when everybody might have to help put up the gates.”