Taking note of jobs well done

A week ago, a vicious thunder and lightning storm struck our hill. Shortly after nine in the evening, there was a flash, a bang, and lights went out. Something nearby had been hit, and we assumed it might be some time before power was restored. We lit candles.

After the romance of chatting by candlelight had died down, we checked elsewhere and found that other people near us had power. We contacted the automated power outage service provided by Nova Scotia Power, informing it by pushing numbers of what had happened. A robotic voice came on the line, letting us know us that they could tell by our number that we lived at such and such an address. It said our report had been completed successfully.

We went to bed in the dark, but shortly afterwards, the lights came on, then a call came from a power company representative asking if the power was back on. I said it was. Well done, I thought, and worthy of mention, as this was clearly a small, localized outage that the company had scrambled to repair.

The second thing I ought to mention, because I have written critical columns about it in the past, is the Department of Highways (at least, that's what it used to be called. Now it is called the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal, which is even harder to say than write). Workers have spent part of the summer redoing another section of Highway 8, which runs from Liverpool to Caledonia. The run to Liverpool is getting to be a pleasant drive.

Equally important, however, is the matter of reclaimed asphalt. When highways are repaved, old asphalt is stripped off. That stuff used to be disposed of, but now, given the price of the materials that go into asphalt, it is being reused. And fortunately for us, the recycled material has been used to improve the road we live on.

The Hibernia Road runs from the corner in Caledonia to Highway 8, passing through a residential part of the village, along by our house, past the Twin Lakes Campground (which hosts the annual Nova Scotia Guides Meet), over a bridge between First Christopher and Second Christopher Lakes, and on to the highway.

Over the years, this road has received a fair amount of attention. When Mayor John Leefe was a cabinet minister in the provincial government, it was seriously upgraded, the roadbed raised and a layer of what was called double chip seal laid down. That lasted for a surprising amount of time, but as Nova Scotia roads must, it began to deteriorate.

Asphalt was sometimes used to patch the holes, and sometimes small strips were actually paved. Yet, it got rougher and rougher. Some recycled asphalt was brought in a year or so ago, but it was applied poorly and was even rougher than the surface it was supposed to repair (a parcel delivery driver said he hated to take his truck over it).

This summer, the whole portion of the road, which used to be chip sealed has been redone with reclaimed asphalt. It has been put down in a thick layer and rolled out so that the road is reasonably smooth. It looks as if it will last a good long time and is certainly a joy to drive over, given what was there before.

The Department of Transportation looks after more than 20,000 kilometres of roads in this province, along with more than 4,000 bridges and seven ferries. It has its work cut out for it. The planners who work in Bridgewater, one of the province's four district highways centres, must make scarce resources go as far as they can (and we hope that those scarce resources can be applied soon to the West Caledonia and Westfield Roads, which are in a really bad condition). Nevertheless, we give credit where credit is due.

The department is run by the Hon. Murray Scott, a former policeman who was born in Springhill. District office in Bridgewater is under the care of Charlie MacDonald.

- Tom Sheppard can be reached at twsheppard@gmail.com