SALISBURY, Md. -- The section of Carroll Street between Waverly Drive and South Division Street will be closed from Monday, May 15th through Friday, May 19th. Crews are repairing the damaged parking garage on the campus of TidalHealth Peninsula Regional Hospital.
Drivers we spoke with in downtown Salisbury, like Brendia Deshield, were fearful of possible congestion. Especially during rush hours at the circle connecting Carroll Street with Mill Street and Riverside Drive.
"You got rush hour in the morning, rush hour during the evening, it's definitely going to be a huge, huge backup," said Deshield.
However, we flew over the circle during evening rush hour and from Chopper 16, there did not appear to be a whole lot, if any, congestion. Still, there are a few areas drivers in Salisbury may want to be aware of.
Heading towards Carroll Street from South Salisbury Boulevard, a litany of white and orange 'road closed' signs greet drivers.
If you are driving from S Salisbury Blvd., you will have to turn right onto South Division Street, taking a detour through downtown. If you are driving towards Carroll Street from Waverly Drive, you will not be allowed to turn right onto Carroll Street but can turn left.
There are detour signs marking how drivers should alter their routes, and even a slight adjustment to someone's commute is something Deshield thinks could ruffle some feathers.
"I do believe it's going to be a huge inconvenience for a week, it's going to cause a lot of backup and people trying to find other ways around," said Deshield.
As the work progresses throughout the week, here is what TidalHealth said drivers can expect on a daily basis:
Monday: Initial road closure
Tuesday: Additional road closure if needed, arrival and construction of a crane in the afternoon and possibly 10 or more trucks staged in the closed off area.
Wednesday: Begin disassembling levels 3 and 4 above the damaged bay, overflow lot will be used as a laydown area and demolition of level 2 will begin.
Thursday: Inspection work and replace level 2.
Friday: Reconstruction of levels 3 and 4, breaking down and demobilizing the crane.
Saturday: Backup day if needed.
TidalHealth also provided WBOC with a breakdown of the work being done:
The easiest way to explain the reconstruction is to consider how Garage A was originally built.
If you’ve ever played with an erector set when younger, the concept—while much more elaborate and at a much larger scale—is pretty much the same.
Garage A was built from the ground level up.
Each of those levels or floors of the garage also have individual sections that all fit together and lock together like a puzzle. So, when that one corner of Garage A was impacted by the accident, it only damaged a single section of level two, not the entire floor on level two.
Since the garage went up in sections that were connected together as it was being built, it can be deconstructed exactly the same way working backwards, removing sections.
And, because just that one portion of level two near the Educational Center was damaged, we only need to be concerned about moving those same sections of levels three and four directly above the damage.
Starting on level four, teams will using a crane to carefully detach and remove JUST that section of the garage above where the damage happened. Again, think high-tech erector set. Once they remove that section of the fourth floor and all its parts and set them aside, they’ll repeat the same process on level three until that section is removed.
What it creates, then, is unobstructed access, by crane and from above, to level two.
That single section of level two that fell into level one as a result of the accident will be replaced and shored up using the crane to lower the piece into place while workers secure it.
Then, building upward, crews will use the same technique and the same parts they removed and set aside earlier to reassemble that corner of level three, then level four, leading to the full repair of Garage A.
All of the new sections will be precast offsite, trucked here and stored on the property. They’ll be lifted, by crane, and secured into place as described above.
The repairs are being made to fix a partial interior collapse of Garage A, which happened back in January when a car ran into a retaining wall. While the work is going on, drivers like Josh Currence say patience will be key.
"I think that when you're in the downtown area you should slow down, take a look at where you are, obey they traffic signals," said Currence.
Drivers are still hopeful the work will get completed on schedule.
"I hope they hurry up and finish this project so people can get to work in a timely manner," said Deshield.
Barring bad weather, work is expected to wrap up on Friday.