GLASGOW — It won’t be closed for the entire winter, just a couple of weeks.

Coos County Commissioners John Griffith and Nikki Whitty agreed with Commissioner and Interim Roadmaster Kevin Stufflebean that a two-week closure at the 4 mile marker on East Bay Drive is necessary in order to do repairs to a landslide.

“We’re hoping that it’s a lot less days,” Stufflebean said on a conference call during a Coos County commissioners’ meeting on Wednesday. “But, this is worst-case scenario.”

Access around East Bay Drive was to be taken away indefinitely in September. But after protests from businesses and neighbors, and under the stipulation it might need to be closed for two or three days during repairs, county commissioners agreed to leave it open.

However, Stufflebean said Wednesday that ODOT District Operations Coordinator Wade Luckman has asked for the extended period of closure due to the possibility of storm delays.

“We’re giving the contractor 14 days,” Luckman said. “It potentially could be less than that. How much is not known. It just depends on how the work goes.”

Although the date for the project to repair approximately 200 to 250 feet of the road has not been set, the bid should be awarded to a contractor by early next week, with work commencing about seven to 10 days after that.

“Until we see a contractor’s schedule of when they need to close that down, it could be anytime in November,” Luckman said.

Before any date could be set, ODOT needed to know if flaggers would be necessary to do the job.

Stufflebean said ODOT recommended the closure because keeping it open would be “too risky,” and hiring flaggers “too costly.”

Another possible holdup to construction is a complaint Luckman received from someone claiming to own property near the slide.

“A property owner contacted ODOT and said he needed to talk about compensation,” Stufflebean said, adding that county counsel is “doing research right now on how much property, if any, is going to be impacted.”

Luckman declined to comment on the situation, except to say, “It’s being resolved.”

The estimated cost to repair the slide area with a rock buttress is $422,000. To speed up the process, repairs initially will be paid for with funds from the county’s budget. Then the county will apply for reimbursement through ODOT’s Surface Transportation Program Modernization fund.

Impact to users

The road is a main connector to North Bend and Coos Bay for residents south of the closure at the 4 mile marker.

A Glasgow resident north of the repair site, Kim Rider, collected 950 signatures in September, opposing a long-term closure. Wednesday, she said she doesn’t understand why the proposed shutdown of the road has to take so long.

“Two weeks is an awful long time,” Rider said. “They said just a couple of days before.”

Children in the area attend schools in the North Bend School District, and have to be transported by bus to schools across McCullough Bridge. In order for them to get to school, an alternate route will have to be taken, Stufflebean said. Calls to the North Bend School District superintendent were not returned at press time.

Another concern is safety of residents on the other side of the closure during construction.

North Bay Fire Assistant Chief James Aldrich, who is president of the Southwestern Fire Chiefs Association, said he hadn’t developed a plan yet, but he would be in contact with other fire chiefs in the area to alert them that help may be needed from their departments.

“I’m going to make sure other fire departments are involved in the process — are aware of what’s taking place,” Aldrich said, adding that there are a number of volunteers from the department who live on the other side of the damaged road who will be able to respond, too.

“Our goal to our citizens on the other side of the slide is no compromise to fire and emergency medical services protection,” he said.

Donna Gould, co-owner of Coos Bay Timber Operators located on Kentuck Way, just south of the closure, had opposed the commissioners’ earlier proposal to close East Bay Drive indefinitely. But, she said she could live with 14 days.

“I don’t think from the trucking end of it we’d be having any problem with them shutting down up to two weeks,” Gould said. “We understand the difficulty of having to flag people through.

“We’d rather have it be a short-term inconvenience than something that’s extended.”