CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — One by one huge rocks were dropped off of a barge and down to the bottom of the Gypsy Street canal bridge. The work being done as quickly as possible as the next major weather event looms in the Atlantic.
"We did observe some scour at the tow during Tropical Storm Alberto, but it not reach the bottom of the bulkheads so it hasn’t in anyway undermined the structure, but based on that we thought it would be a good idea to accelerate our timeline on getting this in place," City Engineer Jeff Edmonds said.
He also showed 3NEWS the City’s repair plans for the Gypsy Street bridge and the one over the canal at Whitecap. Council just approved the $1.5 million work.
It’s hoped that some of the work can be completed before Hurricane Beryl or another storm hits this hurricane season.
"We expect to be fully complete with this within 30 days," Edmonds said.
Bridges Specialties, out of Robstown, is making the repairs to the bridges.
Both of the bridges had to be rebuilt by the county after Hurricane Allen sent surging waters to Corpus Christi in 1980.
3NEWS asked if the newly opened canal connecting the Gulf to The Island canals under the Don Patricio Bridge is going to prove to help minimize storm surge damage.
"Look at what happened with Hurricane Allen, you didn’t have any kind of interconnectivity in the canals and it was still able to destroy the approaches to both bridges," Edmonds said.
City Manager Peter Zanoni knows the City still has a lot of work to do to try and guard against future storm surge events, especially on North Beach, where the City is looking at a number of options in the future to try and better fortify that area.
"A tidal surge like we saw last week is best stopped by either a seawall or some type of earthen berm, some type of dune system that’s doesn’t exist today." Zanoni said.
In the meantime, the city manager says the linear canal project on North Beach is at 90-percent design. It will help to address heavy rain events, not storm surge, from the next big tropical storm or hurricane that hits our area.