WYDOT gears up for statewide repairs

Wyoming motorists can expect some delays around roadwork projects planned for this summer. The Wyoming Department of Transportation plans to begin repairs on 31-million dollars-worth of flood damages on the state’s roads.

Cody Beers is a spokesman for WYDOT’s District 5, which covers most of central and northwest Wyoming. He says increased snowpack and the long cold winter caused heavy, concentrated flooding in his area, especially outside of Yellowstone National Park.

"We started having mudslides, We had high water. We had a lot of debris coming down the river, toward Buffalo Bill Reservoir, and with that debris came an amazing about of erosion around bridges."

Beers says workers were too preoccupied with immediate damage control to fix long-term problems.

“It takes a period of time to design what we wanna do and to implement those strategies, and frankly the water was too high to deal with some of these issues last summer for pretty much the entire summer anyway.”

Beers says WYDOT is working to consolidate repair efforts across the state without interrupting ongoing maintenance.

He says it will be good businesses for Wyoming contractors, but construction might slow down summer traffic.