Shirley Towne Bridge rebuilt in Willow

WILLOW — After nine years, the Shirley Towne Bridge in Willow is back open to provide safe travel for residents across Willow Creek.

Borough officials and Willow residents took part in a ceremonial ribbon cutting ceremony at the bridge on Wednesday, nine years after flooding damaged the bridge and two years after a secondary egress would have allowed residents to evacuate during the flooding of Willow Creek in December of 2019.

“This bridge was on ‘the list,’ you know ‘the list’, I’m sure all of you know ‘the list’, for a very long time and the people who live in and visit this neighborhood are now a lot safer than they were,” said Willow Area Community Organization Chair Linda Oxley. “The direct impact of course is for the people of this area but it’s also going to be an impact on all of us in Willow because we can rest easier knowing that this neighborhood is better off than it was before.”

The Shirley Towne Bridge was built in 1986 by the Division of Forestry and was maintained by the state until 2007 when it was transferred to the Mat-Su Borough. Flooding of willow creek in 2012 took out the bridge, but was not immediately reconstructed due to a price tag of approximately $5 million, according to Borough Mayor Vern Halter.

On December 22, 2019, a cold streak of -35 degree temperatures produced an ice jam at the Deneki Creek bridge which jumped the banks and flooded into the nearby Michelle Drive. As water flowed and re-froze, residents were cut off from exiting their homes at Michelle Drive. The Shirley Towne Bridge would have provided a secondary egress for residents, but had not been repaired after the flooding in 2012.

“With this new bridge, our emergency services personnel and everybody else who would step up to help are a little bit safer off. We can all rest easier and we are all grateful so that risk is aside,” said Oxley. “It’s a beautiful sight, this new bridge and I just want to say thank you again.”

While original estimates to completely reconstruct the bridge were approximately $5 million, the Shirley Towne Bridge became a priority after the 2019 flooding. Last year, the Assembly approved AM 21-003 to fund a reconstruction of the bridge as a single lane road, bringing it back to its original condition from before the 2012 flood. Mayor Halter brought a bottle of champagne to break over the bridge, but gifted the bottle to Public Works Director Terry Dolan instead.

“Since 2012 I;ve been waiting for this day, you cannot believe it. So it’s been quite a while,” said Halter. “The local road people stepped up and that’s a big deal to me.”

AM 21-003 appropriated $406,800 and the Willow RSA funded an additional $100,000 for the reconstruction of Shirley Towne Bridge. Dolan accepted the gift from Halter but thanked project manager Mike Campfield, Rick Antonio and Brad Sworts for their work.

“Those are the guys from the borough on the ground who really put in the effort to get this done along with our contractors and our design engineers. Great work by everybody,” said Dolan.

Campfield thanked PND Engineers, specifically Chuck Kenley, and Roger Hickel Contracting for completing the work on the bridge.

The 2019 flooding of Willow Creek resulted in a disaster declaration and heroic rescue efforts from the Mat-Su Borough Water Rescue Team. Banana boats were floated down the flooded Michelle Drive in 2019 to deliver food and supplies to residents that were stranded beyond the ice.

“One of the concerns we had was where to put this abutment and fortunately we found bedrock when we were drilling out here during construction and were able to put the foundation into bedrock,” said Campfield. “I’ve been around enough glacial fed rivers to not make any promises, but we should be in pretty good shape having this abutment in bedrock now so our contractor here was great working with us getting the foundation adjustments made.”