Chesapeake road crews work through the night

By Austin Wright

CHESAPEAKE

Foreman Edward Winder, called Peewee by his crew, holds the chute on the back of the truck steady as the thick, gray concrete runs through it, like mud flowing down a slide.

Members of the night road crew move with precision as they smooth the quick-drying concrete evenly across a 10-by-12-foot hole that was torn out of the road earlier using jackhammers, electric saws, cables and an excavator.

It's just before midnight recently on Interstate 664 South. By 5 a.m., cars will be driving over the new patch of concrete.

For now, traffic zooms by in the left lane, just feet away from some of the crew members, cones separating the only open lane from a construction zone where nearly 20 people work through the night under bright portable lights replacing deteriorated patches of local highways.

"You keep one eye on traffic and one eye on your job," says Winder, 54, who's been repairing roads since he was 18.

"When you drive around here, you feel bump, bump, bump - but when you drive over my patches, you don't feel it," Winder says. "People don't want holes on the roads, but they also don't want us to fix them."

Since May, night road crews from Denton Concrete Services have been cutting out and replacing deteriorated sections of highway on I-64, I-264 and I-664. The project will continue until October and cost the state $1.8 million.

Project manager Joe Turner, who works for Jacobs Engineering Group, says that's not enough money.

"There's a lot of stuff out here that you need to fix that you don't have money for and you have to skip," Turner says.

The Virginia Department of Transportation uses its available funds to purchase a set amount of concrete to be replaced by the road crews as they work the Hampton Roads interstates. Turner determines which patches are in the worst condition and need to be removed. 

"You may have $5 million worth of work that needs to be done, and they may only give you $2 million," Turner says.

Turner paces up and down the work site, his Dallas Cowboys hard hat illuminated by lights high in the air on poles, like miniature stadium lights. The workers saw out the edges of a 9-inch -deep, rectangular hole, sparks flying in the air, some spilling out into the open lane. Soon, the hole will be filled with concrete, then covered with a thermal blanket to insulate the heat while the concrete dries.

When the crew pulls off the blanket early the next morning, the surface of the patch will be 120 to 150 degrees Fahrenheit.

The new patch should last about 10 years.

"It's hard work, but it's fun," says Scott Austin, 25, who works alongside his younger brother, Mark. "It's cooler during the night than it is during the day - that's what I like about it."

The crew works five nights a week, Sunday through Thursday, typically from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. The majority of the workers are Hispanic and speak very little English. Turner says he communicates to them through demonstrations or through the few workers who speak Spanish and English.

One worker, Juan Moreno, smokes a cigarette as he explains how little distance there is between the workers and the cars that speed by. He uses his hand to draw an invisible line on the ground, about two feet long.

"Not scary," he says, shaking his head.

Austin Wright, (757) 446-2667, austin.wright@pilotonline.com