Tyrrell County manager-attorney David Clegg announced Friday morning that “We are moving towards a 9 a.m. closing on Wednesday” [Oct. 3] of North Road Street in Columbia.

The total vehicle traffic suspension could last up to six weeks, earlier predictions indicated.

The closure will enable RPC Contracting of Kitty Hawk to install a much larger box culvert in North Boundary Canal below the street and to raise the roadway surface about 18 inches to accommodate the drainpipe.

The project, long in the planning, permitting, and funding stages, is designed to reduce frequent flooding of North Road Street and adjacent properties.

The Town of Columbia recently received a grant award that will pay for dredging the canal from Road Street westward to the Scuppernong River, also to alleviate flooding throughout the northern blocks of the town’s residential area. The dredging work probably won’t take place until 2019, town officials predict, because of environmental restrictions to protect spawning fish.

A footbrdige across the 20-foot-wide North Boundary Canal was recently installed a few yards east of Road Street, between Captain Neill’s Seafood processing plant and Crossroads Fuel Service’s offices and storage tanks.

The footbridge will allow easier movement of project workers between the two sides of the job site. It will also allow school children residing in the Riverneck and upper Sound Side communities to transfer to and from a shuttle bus to be operated between the work site and the two school campuses.

The street closure was originally set for Sept. 4, but delays in equipment deliveries, and then the arrival of Hurricane Florence with its subsequent flooding, postponed the date three times.

RPC Contracting will construct a cofferdam and pump out the work site before removing the old cylindrical culvert and installed its boxy successor.

Water, sewage, and natural gas pipelines are being relocated to clear the area for the new culvert. Electric, telephone, television and internet wires have already been moved.

A new road surface will be constructed from Green Street northward to Cemetery Road. Sidewalk on the west side of Road Street will be removed and replaced as required for the installation of storm sewer pipe. The sidewalk will continue across the canal on the west side with a railing.