OXFORD — Town officials hailed the reopening of the Park Road bridge Tuesday morning, the completion of the seventh and final bridge replacement project here following the catastrophic flooding that hit the area more than seven months ago.
Park Road has been closed since the historic Aug. 18 flooding event when torrential rains wreaked havoc on homes, roads, bridges, and culverts. Oxford was among the hardest hit towns in the area. Two of its residents lost their lives after being swept away along Route 67 when their cars became trapped in water that rose as much as six feet above the banks of nearby Little River.
Oxford First Selectman George Temple gathered with dozens of town officials for a ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday while standing at the site of the new bridge, a celebration of both Park Road’s reopening and the overall resilience of the town.
“This is the culmination of a lot of blood sweat and tears for the people of Oxford. It goes back to the devastation of that flood, and this is the final stage of the recovery,” Temple said. “I think the town is going to be able to withstand the storm. I guess that’s a metaphor for the real storm that caused all this damage.”
Temple said he is confident the new bridge has been built to effectively survive a similar flood in the future. He said the previous bridge gave way during the flooding, and then later, in December, a Revolutionary War-era stone archway — that was beneath the bridge — also collapsed.
Temple said the bridge replacement by Brennan Construction took less than six months to complete, noting that similar projects in the past, not connected to the storm, often took two years to complete.
Oxford town officials say the total cost for reconstruction of local roads will likely come in around $8 million, of which the town is hoping to receive about 70 percent reimbursement from the federal government’s FEMA program.
Southbury still recovering from the damage
Meanwhile, in neighboring Southbury, which was also heavily impacted by the flooding, Old Field Road is the only road yet to be reopened.
First Selectman Jeffrey Manville said the bridge there was one of dozens in town destroyed by the flooding. However, its reconstruction is taking longer to complete because it had already been earmarked for replacement and was in the design phase prior to the flooding, meaning it is not eligible for FEMA reimbursement.
Southbury town officials say they are moving ahead with the project just as they would have had there not been any flooding. The roadway is expected to reopen in the spring.
Southbury had an estimated damage amount of about $10 million, slightly higher than Oxford, in part, because its losses included more local roads, while, much of Oxford’s damage centered along Route 67, and those repairs fell under the auspices of the Connecticut Department of Transportation.
Southbury’s damage also included the public library along Poverty Road where the basement, and all of the building’s mechanicals, were destroyed by the raging floodwaters.
Manville recently announced that the library is scheduled to reopen by November, meaning it will have ended up being closed for some 15 months. Manville said he has been disappointed that Southbury is not being provided the level of funds to “built back better,” noting that most of the roads have simply built back the way they were, no less susceptible to future floods.
Manville said he has also been disappointed that Southbury has not received additional funding for the reconstruction of the library. “The state and federal government have come through with nothing and we were told that we were going to get help,” Manville said. “The library in Hartford received $1 million for water damage, but we have received nothing.”
The town recently established a temporary library in the lobby of the Heritage Hotel.
Southbury is also looking to replace the three tennis courts at Community House Park, which were all destroyed in the floods.