By BARBARA GREEN
editor@bowienewsonline.com
The City of Bowie is like many other cities across the country dealing with aging infrastructure, recurring damage from natural disasters and a lack of funding to make all the repairs or improvements a community may need.
City officials are gathering cost information on the best option to repair the collapsed street and related ongoing flood damage on Nelson. The numbers are scary so far topping $2 million.
Renovation of the police department also has been put on hold for structural concerns which increased the cost and threw up a red flag from the architects for the 50-plus year building.
Nelson Street
On Aug. 21, following more than five inches of rainfall in the city, a section of Nelson Street caved in, prompting the street’s closure for safety concerns for any traffic going down the street.
The next day City Manager Bert Cunningham filed a disaster declaration anticipating the governor would proclaim a disaster for the Dallas area which experienced some of the worst rainstorms and flooding in its history. The state declaration came a few days later for 23 counties including Montague.
Usually, with a disaster declaration, a county or community becomes eligible for certain federal disaster relief programs.
Cunningham had hoped for that but as of Thursday, he said it doesn’t look like Dallas has come up with the necessary estimates. The magic number is $48 million in damage before an application can be made for federal disaster funds.
In the first week, engineers and building contractors were asked to examine the damage and offer estimates that the city staff could provide to the feds.
Thursday, Cunningham said the engineers are estimating $2 million to repair the drainage culverts under the street, along with the adjacent flow areas near the dropbox.