You can thank Mother Nature for the closure Thursday (July 20) of the construction zone at the Highway 18/218 intersection at Floyd.
Crews have been constructing new westbound/northbound lanes of the new interchange, but work along the shoulders had to be redone due to recent rains, including almost five inches of rain on July 12th in Floyd.
That’s Pete Hjelmstad with the Mason City District Office of the Iowa DOT, who says construction crews had to use dirt and gravel for the shoulder work, initially because asphalt wasn’t available when work commenced months ago.
Thursday’s road closure at the Floyd intersection wasn’t the only one required last week, but it was the longest continuous closure at almost eight hours.Â
There were a series of intermittent closures Monday (07.17) and Tuesday (07.18) nights to install bridge beams above U.S. Highway 218. Each beam required closing the roadway for up to 30 minutes at a time, with a total of seven bridge beams put in place over the course of the two nights.
