TEXAS CITY, Texas — Avid anglers near the Texas City Dike were encouraged Tuesday when a large excavator was sighted working an area near the entrance of the dike.
The 5-mile-long dike has been closed since Hurricane Ike made landfall and wiped out the dike’s road and washed away the bait camps and fishing piers.
While the work under way was part of the overall plan to rebuild the dike, dike goers need not get too excited. The excavator was removing silt buildup at one of the dike’s boat ramps.
The city is not scheduled to award the contract to rebuild the dike until the end of January, Mayor Matt Doyle said.
The city has not received the money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that will go to pay for most of the repairs.
FEMA allocated $5 million for repairs to the dike, about $6 million shy of what city officials said will be needed to repair the pier.
Doyle said because the wet weather was preventing public works crews from working on a drainage project on the city’s west side, crews shifted to the dike to do some preliminary work on the dike’s three boat ramps.
Doyle said the city should start accepting bids for the repair work by the end of January, with work scheduled to begin by March.
Doyle said he hopes the dike will reopen by October.
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