A large hole blocks part of Montezuma Street after Hancock city workers dug up a damaged section of sewer that was causing problems under the road’s surface. Montezuma Street is one of the city’s high-priority repair projects resulting from the June 17 flash flood. (Houghton Daily Mining Gazette photo by Kali Katerberg)

By KALI KATERBERG

Houghton Daily Mining Gazette

HANCOCK — Repairs continue to move forward on the highest-priority flood repairs, with project approvals getting granted and inspections by the Federal Emergency Management Agency beginning this week.

As of Thursday, projects with the Federal Highway Administration and Michigan Department of Transportation were approved for financing. All three groups had to sign off on the projects for them to move forward. The city is now in the design process, with engineers to submit designs for approval in early September, said City Manager Glenn Anderson.

Of the 14 total projects, eight are listed as high priority to be bid out this fall, the remaining projects will have to wait until 2019.

High-priority streets include Elevation Street, Campus Drive and Montezuma Street.

Projects through FEMA are moving more slowly but are also progressing. On-site inspections of the 79 FEMA projects are expected to start next week.

“The process is going well,” Anderson said.

However, the slow nature of that process could mean many FEMA-funded repairs are not done until 2019.

“As far as access to the FEMA money, most likely it won’t be till 2019 for any of the FEMA projects. Just given the length of review time and design time. It’s likely our FEMA projects will not be under construction until 2019,” Anderson explained.

Emergency repair work is currently mostly caught up.