By DOMENIC POLI
Recorder Staff
DEERFIELD — A construction barge swept down the Deerfield River Thursday morning as torrential rains raised water level was returned safe and sound to the old Interstate-91 northbound bridge site — and a state Department of Transportation spokeswoman said the event will not affect ongoing construction.
In Greenfield and other parts of the county, local flooding caused by about 3 inches of downpour overnight receded during the day.
State spokeswoman Judith Riley said the excavator that was sitting atop the barge pushed its floating platform back upstream to its rightful spot where crews are building new interstate highway bridges over the Deerfield River.
“It would put the bucket on the riverbed, pull up the spuds [two vertical pipes], push it as far as it could, reset the spuds, and continue the process until it was back in location,” she explained.
The barge got loose after heavy rains hit the area Wednesday night. Riley said the barge traveled 200 to 250 yards before grounding on a gravel bar. The spuds are four leg-like wooden poles that normally set into the river bottom.
“There was also a bull rope tying the barge to the temporary work trestle, but it snapped when the spuds failed to hold,” Riley said, adding that the rope was substantial and has been described as something that could be used for a cruise ship.
The barge, Riley said, is being used to stage the excavator to complete the demolition of the bridge piers from the former I-91 Northbound bridge. Riley said it is owned by a contractor involved with the project and it is expected to be removed after the new bridge in its new alignment is opened.
The massive rainfall also flooded many of the usual low-lying areas in and around Greenfield, causing some road damage.
The rain flooded “the usual spots” around Greenfield Thursday morning, closing Nashs Mill Road, Plain Road and Colrain Street.
Greenfield Police Lt. William Gordon said calls started pouring in at 12:30 a.m. with reports of incidents resulting from the storm. He said calls of damaged roadways began around 4 a.m.
Gordon said the first call came in to report the roadway had collapsed on Plain Road, near Brookside Animal Hospital. Swirling water that got under the asphalt pavement near a plugged culvert stripped away the pavement.
“It’s pretty drastic. It’s heavily damaged. Not even emergency vehicles can get by. It’s extensive. It’s not something that is going be opened today,” Gordon said Thursday.
Gordon mentioned the police department regularly monitors Nashs Mill Road during rainstorms and nothing unusual was noticed until officers spotted severe flooding on their way to a separate report of flooding at Colrain Street. Gordon said Nashs Mill Road was about 90 percent flooded. He said the water on both Both Nashs Mill and Colrain Street started to recede at 7 a.m. on Thursday.
Greenfield Recreation Director Christy Moore said the Greenfield Swimming and Recreation Area, situated on Nashs Mill Road, was hit with about 2.5 feet of water. Though most of the water had receded from the building by Thursday afternoon, the area’s basketball court and sections of its playground were still underwater. Moore said it seemed like everything was covered in three-fourths of an inch of silt.
She said the biggest expense will come from replacing the sand at the area’s beach, which she said was eroded. Moore said she didn’t know how long this would take, but the beach season starts in June.
Moore discourages people from visiting the site to survey the damage because everything is wet and slippery and the Green River was still raging on Thursday.
The lieutenant said there were reports of homeless people trapped near the Green River at 7 a.m. but those people had safely evacuated themselves.
Gordon speculates the flooding was caused by a broken ice dam.
“That’s not atypical this time of year,” he said.
A low-lying section of Mill Village Road in Old Deerfield was closed Thursday morning because of flooding, and a section of Routes 5 and 10 near Richardson’s Candy Kitchen was flooded overnight, although cars were able to pass that stretch with one lane covered in about a foot of water.
To the east of the county, the deluge did less damage.
Athol’s tree warden had some work overnight as wind and rain felled limbs, but the Athol Fire Department reported an otherwise uneventful night and the Orange Fire Department responded to a single tree down on wires.