QSM Delivers for Brown Industrial in Central, LA; Drainage Repairs complete on LA-37
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When historic flooding inundated areas of East Baton Rouge parish in August, 2016, La-37 in the city of Central was among the hardest hit. Following the torrent, Central was left as an island, with major thoroughfares in and out of the city swamped by the overflowing rivers.
Greenwell Springs Road, Joor Road, Hooper Road, and the Central Thruway were blocked for miles in each direction.
“I’ve been here since 1997 and never seen anything like this,” said one resident.
LaDOTD determined LA-37 (Greenwell Springs Rd.) was in need of drainage repairs.
Brown Industrial Construction, a heavy civil firm based in Baton Rouge, won the contract for repairs on this stretch of LA-37. The project was let by DOTD late in 2016, and then Brown began work in January, 2017.
Tight working conditions and logistical delivery of the goods were obstacles. LA-37 is a two-lane road, and it has no shoulder. This meant the entire roadway needed to be closed in order to achieve delivery of the drainage materials, and that Brown’s crews could perform work only from late on Friday evening to early Monday mornings.
Brown called on QSM for reinforced concrete pipe in 24-inch and 60-inch diameter, reinforced concrete arch pipe in 30-inch and 42-inch diameter, 12-inch A-2000, and one catch basin.
Matt Hicks, Project Manager at Brown said, “We had a contract with DOTD at three locations along LA-37. All existing cross drain culverts needed to be replaced.
“There are very steep ditches in these areas, and each drainage crossing had to be done on a separate weekend, because we had to shut the whole road down and run a detour around the work area.”
Brown worked on successive weekends to complete the task. With crews on site, from 8pm Friday to 5am Monday mornings, Brown removed old culverts, installed new culverts, then added backfill and repaved the area with asphalt.
Work began on January 13 at the first crossing. Continued on January 27th at the second crossing, and in early February at the third crossing. Once the culvert repairs were completed, Brown had additional work to perform that didn’t require a full road closure. The project was completed in mid March, 2017.
“I’ve been doing this work my whole career,” says Hicks. “On a job like this you have to have all your ducks in a row, and that’s one of the reasons I like working for our company. We take these challenging projects, and turn them around successfully. Our teams work well, and there always are lessons to be learned. We know it’s a challenge, and we know it’s hard work, but we welcome challenges and we take pride when a job like this is well done.”
Brown Industrial Construction is a Brown Industries company based out of Baton Rouge. The company’s aim is to build strong relationships and to maintain strong partnerships with its sister firms, in order to deliver innovative concepts that set industry benchmarks.