'Anything that could go wrong, did': Rollins Road detour to remain in place awhile longer

An already frustrating detour of busy Rollins Road in central Lake County will continue for thousands of drivers.

Due to "major complications" involving a culvert replacement project, Rollins Road between Fairfield Road and Wilson Road will remained closed until Nov. 30, according to the Lake County Division of Transportation.

An abandoned crashed car, equipment failures and other snags have meant 14,000 drivers using that stretch of Rollins have had to detour around Long Lake much longer than expected.

"We know that the motorists who depend on this road have run out of patience, and we are doing everything we can to get the road back open," according to a LCDOT news release Friday.

"While we take great pride in delivering road improvements on schedule, occasionally we have projects that don't go according to plan. This project is an example of one where anything that could go wrong - did," according to LCDOT.

The $360,000 project to replace the arched metal Eagle Creek culvert began Oct. 15 and was supposed to take 14 calendar days to complete. The work is part of an LCDOT program to replace culverts, which require a long lead time to draw plans and make the custom components, before they fail.

The replacement is a larger, 10-foot-wide by 7-foot-tall concrete culvert composed of pre-made concrete panels and structural elements poured on site, according to Glenn Petko, engineer of construction for LCDOT.

Originally, the contractor was to have worked on both ends of the culvert simultaneously, but an unforeseen utility conflict prevented that and basically doubled the original schedule.

After that, weather, equipment failure and even a car crashing into the job site caused "major complications" that disrupted the schedule, according to LCDOT.

"Every day, another thing seems to come up," Petko said. "We've had just about everything that could go bad, go bad."

On the morning of Oct. 28, Lake County sheriff's deputies found a damaged car abandoned at the work site. The owner was located and told police that at about 3:30 a.m. she asked a friend to drive her home because she was too intoxicated, according to Sgt. Christopher Covelli. Authorities are investigating who was driving at the time of the crash, he said.

The crash did not damage the culvert, Petko said, but broke the wood framing in place for another concrete pour. Another delay occurred when a cable was found and the owner couldn't immediately be identified. Pump issues also were a factor, Petko said.

The contract called for a penalty of $8,500 per calendar day over schedule, but it is too soon to tell how much or if the contractor will be penalized, he said.

"There will be an evaluation. Unfortunately, in this case it was many different things happening," Petko said.