LAFAYETTE, La. — Repairs to buckled concrete, or what DOTD officials call a "concrete blow-up", on Johnston St. are leaving detours through the weekend — appearing less than convenient for area businesses. In the meantime, however, local business owners say it'll be business as usual.
Amy Lemoine owns The Pink Paisley boutique off Johnston St. Since Thursday night when the buckling took place, one of the roads leading up to her shop has been closed.
"I actually woke up this morning, got my cup of coffee, got my phone, and had a multitude of texts about it, and thought, "Okay, what are we about to deal with?'" Lemoine says. "But so far it's not been horrible, I mean, when tragedy strikes, that's a marketing opportunity, so we've just been having fun with my employees and Instagram stories."
In these Instagram stories, you can see different employees of The Pink Paisley having a laugh about the current circumstances while highlighting different products available during Father's Day weekend.
Over at nearby Lafayette Music, the company's president, Raymond Goodrich, tells a similar story.
"I had a friend that sent a video over to me last night from across the street saying, 'Oh my goodness, look what took place,' and it's just water off the back," Goodrich says. "When I got here this morning before 9 o'clock the road was torn out, rocks were exposed, they dug up the whole thing and they've been preparing to put a quality patch in place, that way we won't have a problem in that spot moving forward."
However, DOTD officials say that's not necessarily the case — this issue can happen anywhere, any time a road is exposed to high temperatures, and there's no way to prevent it. By 5 p.m. Friday, DOTD crews had laid the asphalt for the patch, and while it may look finished, spokeswoman Deidra Druilhet says that's not necessarily the case.
"One of the challenges, because it is so warm right now and asphalt is so hot when we put it down, one of the things we're gonna have to do is make sure the asphalt cools down enough before we can allow motorists to drive back on it," Druilhet tells KATC.
According to DOTD, the asphalt has to reach a temperature of less than 180 degrees. Since it was laid Friday, it was clocking in at 200 degrees and over. Druilhet says the department expects it to take at least until the end of the weekend for temperatures to cool down enough and make the asphalt safe to drive on, so there is no set date for the completion of this project. KATC asked DOTD how much the repairs will cost by the time they were complete and the department could not provide that answer to us at last check.
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