Southbury road reopens after last summer's flooding as town continues to rebuild

A busy road in Southbury is back open to drivers -- after flooding last August washed out a large part of the road into the Kettletown Brook.

"We were cut off,” said David Amdur, a resident of Georges Hill Road.

We met Amdur nearly one year ago while covering the flooding, because his house is one of four that were cut off after historic rains destroyed the neighborhood's bridge to Georges Hill Road.

He says the state put in a temporary bridge eight days later, which still remains today.

As for Georges Hill Road, it's open to cars as of last week.

Amdur says the biggest challenge was having to drive or walk up to a mile for his kids new bus stop -- and the lack of convenience when it came to driving through only one side of the long road.

"I’m glad it's open,” said Amdur.  “It’s good and definitely for the logistics of a number of families that have kids in schools."

The Connecticut Department of Transportation says the goal was to get this road back in business ahead of the summer, especially because it's how people get to Kettletown State Park.

"None of this work was planned, was budgeted for, was on anyone's radar, but everyone made it a priority. And we were just so excited to get this last state road reopened,” said CT DOT spokesperson Josh Morgan.

The flooding was historic, but Morgan says the state looked to upgrade the new infrastructure on the road to prevent future problems.

"What we did is made the openings larger, made the bridge culvert a different design to try to handle additional flow. So it wasn't a 1-to-1, put back what was there,” said Morgan.

To date, the state says the cost of repair for the roughly two dozen washed out state roads and bridges was $31 million.

THE TOWN OF SOUTHBURY CONTINUES TO REBUILD

Georges Hill Road was the last state road to reopen from the flooding, but there are still areas owned by the town where work is still underway.

Work continues in Southbury’s Old Field Road, which partially collapsed during last August’s flooding.

"Old Field was slated to be replaced anyway, so we continued with the plan to replace it, which should lessen the flooding mitigation that's over there,” said Jeff Manville, Southbury’s First Selectman.

Manville says the town approved an $8.5 million bond to fix infrastructure damaged in connection to last August’s storm.

The Southbury Public Library got hit hard by the storm. Manville says the plan is for it to reopen in November.

He says they're also still waiting for some reimbursement from FEMA, which he says has trickled down to the state level.

"It’s sitting there but we're hoping we can get some money flowing,” said Manville.

In a statement to NBC Connecticut, Rick Green from the Department of Emergency Services says a number of projects related to the flooding last August in Southbury have already received reimbursement.

“The town of Southbury, FEMA, and the state continue to work together to finalize reimbursement documentation for additional disaster funding,” said Green.