FAIRHOPE – City workers will repair the damage that has left the municipal pier without water, sewer or electrical service since October in a move that will save Fairhope about $200,000, officials said.
The Fairhope City Council voted Monday, March 8, to buy a utility tray at a cost of $38,568.30 and have public works and sewer service workers install the system and restore services. The tray will hold and protect the lines providing services to the pier.
The pier’s water, sewer and power were knocked out by the storm surge from Hurricane Zeta on Oct. 28. Since then, the city has gone out twice for bids to repair the service, Mayor Sherry Sullivan said. Both times, the total cost for repairs would have been about $250,000.
Sullivan said city officials, including Public Works Director Richard Johnson and Water and Sewer Department Director Jason Langley, decided Fairhope workers could repair the damage.
“We pulled together everybody,” Sullivan said in an interview on WABF radio. “We got down to the pier with all the utilities and public works and said, ‘OK, can we do this ourselves? How can we do this?’ So, basically the utility superintendent, Jason Langley, and Richard Johnson, public works director, got together and said, ‘let’s come up with a plan,’ and that’s what they did. They said we think we can do this.”
The council also voted March 8 to reject the second bid and have city crews repair the damage.
At the March 8 meeting, Council President Jack Burrell said the work will save the city about $200,000.
“Last council meeting we had asked if there were ways that we could value engineer the utility infrastructure project at the municipal pier and could we do that with our own labor,” Burrell said. “Jason and Richard got to work and it’s not like they don’t have anything else to do. They’re super-busy people. But they met with the mayor out there and discussed that and we had a long teleconference and they have decided that they can take on this project, which is going to save the city over $200,000. They came up with a solution.”
Sullivan said that while Baldwin County was declared a disaster area after Hurricane Sally in September, making the area eligible for federal emergency funding, the Eastern Shore and other areas of the county were not included in the declaration after Hurricane Zeta.
“It’s going to make a huge difference in that money saving and these are the kind of projects that some of our employees take pride in doing because they know the impact that it has on our community,” Sullivan said. “So, I’m just really thankful that they’re willing to do it.”
At a Feb. 22 City Council meeting, Johnson said that while Sally was a stronger storm, the storm surge from Zeta was higher in Mobile Bay. The surge damaged piers along the Eastern Shore. The utility lines running under the municipal pier were disconnected by the storm.
