Beach road repairs underway
BY FRANKLIN HAYES Gulf Breeze News franklin@gulfbreezenews.com

Franklin Hayes/Gulf Breeze News A "sacrificial" roadway, one that is designed to fail in case of a hurricane, is being rebuilt over the previous road connecting Pensacola Beach with Navarre Beach. The roadway will provide an additional evacuation route off the island. Plans call for the road to be finished by later summer or fall of 2008.

After more than two years after Hurricane Dennis ravaged repair work begun on J. Earle Bowden Way, construction is underway once more. The road that connects and serves as a vital evacuation route between Pensacola Beach and Navarre Beach is expected to be open to the public by the spring or summer of 2008 and local officials couldn't be happier.

"That part of the road between Navarre and Pensacola Beach is a safety issue," said Santa Rosa Island Authority General Manager Buck Lee. "If for some reason the Bob Sikes Bridge goes out, people are trapped on the beach. I'm glad to see the progress. I'd like to see it done by July for the air show, featuring the Blue Angels."

According to a press release from the Florida Department of Transportation, the construction firm Panhandle Grading and Paving was awarded a $3.4 million contract to rebuild a two lane roadway between Navarre Beach and Opal Beach. The latter being a federal park and picnic area approximately three miles west of Navarre Beach. Construction will also include a single lane emergency road between Opal Beach and Pensacola Beach that will not be open to the public. The press release says efforts to design and construct a two-lane road between the two areas are ongoing. All sections of the road being repaired are within federal jurisdiction and are apart of a protected land reserve on Santa Rosa Island.

Jerry Eubanks, superintendent for the National Park Service's Gulf Islands Seashore, said the road connecting the two island communities will be replaced with a "sacrificial" roadway, designed to reduce rebuilding costs. Eubanks said construction will consist of a layer of cementhardened sand base, capped by a thin layer of asphalt.

"Most of the road is still there," Eubanks said. "We won't be tearing any of it out."

Eubanks added that once access is restored to Opal Beach, the federal government will replace or repair restroom and picnic facilities at the small recreation area.

Although severe weather delayed work on Oct. 18, crews from Panhandle Grading and Paving are now back on scene preparing the sight for construction.

"Right now they are creating some sand fencing to keep the construction in a specific corridor to protect the resources out there," Nina Kelson with the National Park Service said. Kelson added that actual road construction should begin next week, weather permitting.

Eubanks said the next transportation priority on the island is restoring access to Fort Pickens.

"The problem right now at Fort Pickens is electrical power," Eubanks said. "We can't get electric power out there until we have a road."

Preliminary plans, which have the road to Fort Pickens reopening in late summer or fall of 2008, including repairing the corridor there with interlocking, high strength, permeable cells that are filled with sand and capped with pavement, Eubanks said. The construction method, designed by the Army Corps of Engineers specifically for beach road construction, consists of polyethylene strips configured in a honeycomb. The design is said to help with erosion and stabilization.