Storm blows crane mats into ocean
NEWBURYPORT �� Captains of economic crafts navigating the Merrimack River really should be looking for dozens on wooden planks which are blown in to the water sometime during yesterday��s powerful nor��easter.
HK & S Construction spokesman Hugo Key said the planks were utilised to create a temporary road for heavy equipment as well as the hauling of huge boulders because they travel in the Plum Island Point staging area, across sand dunes and to the jetty.
The 4-feet-wide-by-12-feet-long planks, called quality crane mats, are owned by HK & S Construction, this company utilizing the Army Corps of Engineers to fix the river��s south jetty.
Newburyport harbormaster Paul Hogg said several of the planks have already washed ashore and Key believes nearly all of them are found in marshy regions of Plum Island. But there is enough concern to alert the few captains still operating boats on this occasion of the year.
Just to save time, the planks were left set up after daily��s work and secured with steel cable.
The storm turned out to be excessive for that steel cable plus the dozens of mats were lost.
��If anybody sees them, we wish to encourage them dealt with. They��re heavy plus they��ll definitely do some damage,�� Hogg said.
Newburyport U.S. Coast Guard P.O. 2nd Class Patrick Castrillo yesterday said the Coast Guard is just not actively in search of them.
Key said his company has replaced the planks understanding that the $3.6 000 0000 project aren’t going to be delayed.
��It won��t impact the progress; we carry on and work,�� Key said.
��It��s usually a constant issue in the season,�� Key said, discussing securing the planks.
However, Key said he’s talking to the Army Corps of Engineers about how precisely to best secure or store the revolutionary planks hence the next powerful storm doesn��t send them floating away.
By the end of March, officials hope, 1,000 feet of the 1,400-foot-long south jetty are going to be fortified. Currently, the jetty has several gaping holes which allow ocean and river currents to rip throughout them. By repairing the jetty, officials would like to slow the erosion of Plum Island, which has been battered until several houses on Annapolis Strategies Newbury have been in danger of falling into the ocean.