World Photo by Madeline Steege The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is working on the Englewood dikes as forecasts are calling for rain and the month’s highest tides Sunday.

They're back.

After further review, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decided Tuesday it would begin dike repair work after it abruptly ceased the same efforts a little more than 24 hours before.

“We're moving dirt,” said John Craig, the local project manager for the corps Wednesday. “We got 22 dump trucks in the mix right now. We hired as many dump trucks as the contractor could find.”

The repair work, in areas adjacent to the Libby Drainage and Englewood Diking Districts, resumed at around 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Craig said. On Monday, the corps issued press releases - the first indicated it was undertaking flood fight operations, the second, hours later, said it was stopping the work because of a change in the weather. The corps was acting under a Jan. 13 emergency declaration by Gov. Ted Kulongoski that covered 24 counties, including Coos.

Initially, the threat of heavy rains and the highest tides of the month, expected this weekend, prompted the corps to prepare for potential flooding. Over New Year's weekend, more than 20 homes on Old Wireless Lane, Illinois Avenue and Shinglehouse Slough Road were flooded after weeks of heavy rain mixed with high tides, displacing families and ruining property.

In an effort to prevent that from occurring again, the corps hired Salem-based contractor Just Bucket Excavating to complete repair work, which included the construction of a 300-foot-long dike on the south side of Old Wireless Lane, a cross dike to protect the dike's main tidegate and the installation of a 48-inch tidegate near Illinois Street.

The work was scheduled to be completed within 72 hours.

But shortly after noon Monday, Craig received word to call the contractor off because there had been a change in the weather. Despite the high tides, the forecast only called for moderate rainfall. Under the regulations that guide the corps, the agency reportedly could not carry out temporary flood fighting measures without the heavy rains predicted.

“So right now we are going to cease operations because under our flood-fight authority we need to be fighting rain and floods, and that scenario is not now happening,” Craig said Monday.

That brought flood prevention efforts to a grinding halt. On Wednesday, Craig said when the work stopped, administrators at the corps continued to review the regulations that triggered the initial call to act.

“(The work) was stopped because the forecast changed and didn't meet the conditions at the time,” Craig said. “And then Portland district command made the decision that the work was necessary and to complete the job was the right thing to do. So we are moving out on it again.”

Les Miller, the corps' chief of emergency management said in a prepared statement the agency can conduct emergency flood fight operations if the storm event is forecast within 72 hours.

“There are less threatening coastal storms on the radar; however, progressively higher tides forecast to peak on Sunday are what really pose the threat of the weakened dike failing again,” Miller said.

Craig said Wednesday the extended forecasts now called for a considerable amount of rain.

“It looks like it's getting worse - two to three inches are expected on Sunday. The long range forecast out of Medford says we could be getting an inch on Saturday,” he said, noting that high tides - around 9.6 feet - are expected to peak around 10 a.m. on Sunday.

He said those two factors, plus forecasts for higher than average winds ( which also played into the New Year's floods) prompted the corps to reconsider. The contractor was still in the midst of its work from Monday to restore land to its original condition when it got the call Tuesday to resume operations, Craig said.

The repair work, scheduled to be completed late Friday, includes a 13-foot-tall cross-dike to the south of Old Wireless Lane from Southwest Boulevard to the existing dike; a rehabilitated dike to the east of Old Wireless Lane and a new 60-foot-long dike to protect an existing tidegate near the intersection of Shinglehouse Slough Road and Fruitdale Lane.

In addition, Craig said the city of Coos Bay is building up a berm along the eastern side of Southwest Boulevard, while Coos County road crews are building a berm near the intersection of Shinglehouse Slough Road and Fruitdale Lane that will connect to its dike.

“Hopefully the dike does not breech, but if it does these efforts will go a long ways to preventing the damage we experienced at the end of December,” said Coos County legal counsel David Koch.

Craig stressed the dike repair work is only temporary - expected only to get the area through this weekend's storm and tide events.

“This is a great example of why communities need to build a significant ‘rainy day' account to take care of emergencies and reduce the long-term possibilities of flooding,” Miller said.