Well we were praying for rain, but perhaps not quite this much, and not all at once...
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The new Lanes Bridge build was finally underway at the beginning of last week, with piling contractors and rig on site to drive five steel “I” beams 16 metres down for the new bridge abutment on the southern side of the bridge.
They managed to do the same on the northern side of the bridge until the sky fell down all at once on Wednesday evening.
Despite the deluge creating a huge muddy mess for workers, assistant general manager for engineering services Paul Gallagher said “all the abutment piles were finished by the end of the week”.
But constant downpours over the weekend caused the river levels to rise 1.2 metres above the new pads constructed for the piling equipment to operate from.
The in-stream piling work that was meant to start on Monday has had to be delayed for around a week (fingers crossed) until the water recedes to the levels of the piling pads.
“The flow in the river stream on the morning of October 15 was fortunately slow and not excessive and it is anticipated that minimal damaged will be caused to the gravel piling beds,” Mr Gallagher said.
“The contractor is able to work in shallow water depths, so once the river level drops we will reassess the condition of the pads and work is anticipated to be back on track.”
The original deadline for piling works was November 9, but that will likely now be set at November 16, unless the torrents continue.
The seven-day forecast from the Bureau of Meteorology does not look promising with some rainfall expected for the forseeable future.
In good news it is highly likely that these rainy days will have broken the recent drought conditions in the Nambucca Shire.