Caution! Road Work Ahead

When we moved into this house 35 years ago it was not in the City of Austin. We anticipated that to be a temporary condition, and sure enough, we were annexed – year before last. For three decades if you looked at a map of the incorporated city you found our little subdivision completely encircled by the city – but not included. We sort of figured that it would be such a huge chore to provide wastewater services – given the solid rock that underlies most of this subdivision – that the city could not justify the return on investment. I’m still not sure of the economics, but the wastewater project is underway, nevertheless.

They began last year in the adjacent subdivision – those houses down by the creek and over toward I-35. We know some people from church who live down there and they told us horrifying stories every week. Our turn came shortly after the beginning of the year when they began work on “Section B.” That’s us and most of the rest of Four Seasons. Several months ago crews came and drove stakes in our yards and painted marks and numbers on the street and put up little sections of chain-link fence in our yards. For example, here’s our fencelet. I do not know what the fence is for. Other neighbors have them and but many others don’t. We’re just lucky, I guess.

Then we anxiously waited for the dreaded trenching machine, a monstrous contraption that eats a path 6 feet wide and some varying number of feet deep down the middle of the street, shakes pictures off the walls, robs you of your hearing and throws up tsunamis of dust. Of course, while this machine and trench are in front of your house you don’t get to use your driveway. Supposedly, they won’t keep you cut off for more than 48 hours. During that time you park on the street in the next block (assuming you got your car out in time), and if you need something hauled in or out the foreman says they will help with that. I heard him say that myself, so I know it must be true.

Crews follow behind the trenching machine putting a honking big pipe in the trench and then they cover it up as they go along. About the time you think it’s safe to use your driveway, backhoes come and dig up the covered up part of the trench where the stakes are and dig lateral lines into your yard, removing your curb and destroying your sprinkler system. The contactor has a special number to call just to report damaged sprinkler systems. Nothing happens if you do; there evidently is a special secret number for actually getting repairs done and they aren’t giving that number out. Once these guys go away, then you are home free except for the ten or twelve times they come back and dig up some more – maybe because a worker lost a comb or something in the hole. I don’t know what they’re doing.

Now to be fair, this hasn’t happened in front of our house yet. We thought they were coming, but they got bogged down in the block below us (by the vacant lot and big tree) and they spent several weeks digging a serious hole in the road and filling it up then digging it out again. We would drive by and see six or eight foreman-type guys standing at a barrier looking into the hole. I imagine they were saying things like, “Yep. That sure is a hole, alright.” When they finally got tired of looking at that hole they moved over to April and dug another hole. Variety is the spice of life.

So, for now we just watch the dump trucks drive up and down our street, intermixed with the occasional back hoe or grader and listen to the obnoxious “beep beep beep” when something backs up. And every day when we return home, we wonder what adventure awaits us on our street. We’ll keep you posted.