Rain creates more delays for Five Points road work

Crews have lost about 1½ weeks of work to wet weather, so they won't finish by mid-September as projected, said DOT engineer Jeff Allen said.

"We should be done by the end of September," Allen said in a release Thursday. "But we have encountered so many unexpected factors on this project that we cannot set a specific completion date. We're still at the mercy of Mother Nature."

This week, it rained right after crews had removed the existing concrete road, exposing the red clay soil. Crews had to wait until the ground dried out to resume grading work.

On Friday, bulldozers scraped up the red clay, and dump trucks toted it away. The roadbed needs to be lowered 6 to 8 inches, because  the old 6-inch concrete road is being replaced with a 13-inch asphalt surface.

Some roads and ramps will be closed during grading and resurfacing operations.

The whole project was lengthened by a couple months when this past winter, resurfacing work unexpectedly turned up a crumbling concrete base that was at least 70 years old. Removing that layer and laying down new asphalt pushed costs up by about $900,000, according to the DOT.