PROVIDENCE – Work on the long-awaited repairs to the city’s Fox Point Hurricane Barrier have officially started.
Mayor Brett P. Smiley announced Monday that work has begun on a $1.5 million project to replace the barrier’s underground hydraulics for the sewer gates, which are located at the intersection of Allens Avenue and Henderson Street.
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This is the first phase of a $3 million investment in the hurricane barrier. The additional $1.5 million investment will begin in 2024. That project will replace all of the road plates at four of the street gates associated with the hurricane barrier levee system. Those plates house the components needed to secure the street gates when they are closed during a severe coastal storm or hurricane.
“This infrastructure investment is a critical part of how we can ensure Providence is resilient in the face of intense weather events and climate change,” Smiley said. “Repairs to the hurricane barrier are long overdue and we are committed to making sure that the repairs are completed as quickly and safely as possible.”
The first phase of construction is expected to conclude by mid-August. During this construction, southbound traffic on Allens Avenue will be detoured to Eddy Street, to Blackstone Street and back onto Allens Avenue. Northbound traffic will be reduced to one lane around the work zone.
Local environmental groups in a July 22, 2022, Providence Business News story warned that repairs to the half-century-old hurricane barrier – once known as a state-of-the-art marvel to prevent hurricane damage to the city – are sorely needed. The metal has corroded, the steel scratched and beaten down. But the gates, pipes and valves of the structure itself aren’t the biggest problem. Rather, it’s the water beneath it, which continues to creep higher and higher, threatening to make the once-revolutionary system obsolete.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers included $1 million in its budget to study potential climate weaknesses with the barrier. The hurricane barrier was also earlier this year considered among the “most endangered” properties by the Providence Preservation Society.
“Repairs to the hurricane barrier are long overdue and we are committed to making sure that the repairs are completed as quickly and safely as possible,” Smiley said on July 10. “This infrastructure investment is a critical part of how we can ensure Providence is resilient in the face of intense weather events and climate change.”
