Ruins after the flood: the life of the uluses depends on the roads www.zr.ru
Behind reports from flood regions, everything is much more tragic than the dry lines say. Roman Starovoit, head of Rosavtodor, spoke about the details for readers at the wheel of the Russian Federation. He returned from an inspection trip along the Kolyma highway, driving 2, 100 cars from end to end. For messages from flood regions, everything is much more tragic than the dry lines say. Roman Starovoit, head of Rosavtodor, spoke about the details for readers at the wheel of the Russian Federation. He returned from an inspection trip along the Kolyma highway, driving a car from end to end of 2.1 thousand km.
Roman Vladimirovich, your strongest impressions?
- Most importantly, today along this road of strategic importance for the region, cars drive all the way from Yakutia to Magadan. In some places, on one lane, which they managed to defend, but they are going. We must evaluate what it cost. Imagine what the masses of water were like if fifty tons of concrete drain pipes of a meter diameter pulled out from under the track. If the repairmen didn’t have time in time, colossal erosions could have formed in the places of the breakthrough - they would have lost the road.
The embankment, like a dam, held back lakes of moisture. It is not designed for such overloads - and the flows nevertheless cut the canvas in 50 places. The total length of the gaps is about 4.5 km. But only in two areas the movement was closed for a long time - for two and seven days. In other cases, the holes were eliminated very quickly … Where the rivers came close to the embankment, streams carried away the base of the canvas. For dozens, and even hundreds of kilometers, bulldozers, excavators, other equipment delivered to the place, brought rocky soil, sand and gravel … Getting wet under heavy showers, the road builders worked almost around the clock.
Ruins after the flood: the life of the uluses depends on the roads www.zr.ru
Roman Starovoit, head of the Federal Road Agency. Roman Starovoit, head of the Federal Road Agency. Roman Starovoit, Head of the Federal Road Agency
“Is the tension removed now?”
- Only in the sense that heavy rainfall has stopped and we do not expect new destruction. But the flood added problems that were not expected.
It became clear: the sections of the route close to the rivers should be strengthened to no purpose - they should be taken away from the channels. And not just because of the grand spills. The designers of the initial route of the road did not take into account that the rivers of the eastern regions tend to change the channel path almost every year. Hence, many kilometers of road sections will have to be rebuilt. Not only will it take more than repair, effort, time and money (up to a billion rubles, depending on the length) - it is not yet clear where and how to allocate.
It is also not clear because the flood washed out the topsoil on these lands, which from time immemorial served as a "thermal laying" for permafrost. She was gone - and permafrost is no longer eternal: the icy earth will melt, and the process cannot be stopped. The following spring, there will be lakes on the site of the exposed lenses of the permafrost (their diameter can reach 1 km) …. Another headache: the permafrost has cracked. We measured one of them: 17 meters deep.
Ruins after the flood: the life of the uluses depends on the roads www.zr.ru
Permafrost crack, depth 17 meters. Permafrost crack, depth 17 meters.
The Permafrost Institute of the Siberian Branch of the RAS will help - with his visit, I began a visit to Yakutsk. In the arsenal of scientists, construction technology in the region, including, paradoxically as it sounds, with preliminary freezing of the soil. That is, there is a way out, but even the stage of designing new roundabouts threatens to drag out. To make things go faster, we take consultations from scientists literally in an emergency.
Another unpleasant news: the locals turned our attention to the fact that the showers here, in principle, became more frequent, became more plentiful. And, perhaps, as a result, mudflows went down in the highlands, they flood roads. But until now, everyone believed that mudflows are characteristic of warmer latitudes. Climate change will have to be reckoned with - it is necessary to supplement the protective technologies of construction and road maintenance.
Ruins after the flood: the life of the uluses depends on the roads www.zr.ru
This is not a mudflow, but “only” the flood trail. What leaves the village is a thousand times worse. This is not a mudflow, but “only” the flood trail. What leaves the village is a thousand times worse.
This is about the near future, but urgent tasks remain. On the approach of the cold: when we drove through the Oymyakon district, the temperature here had already dropped to -4 ° C, in a couple of weeks winter would come everywhere in these parts. It is necessary to have time to prepare the track for the snow crust - to level the surface of the soil bed, primarily in areas of post-flood work. We won’t do it - the crust will repeat and exacerbate the tubercles and potholes. (The Kolyma highway has not yet been covered with asphalt, because first you need to reconstruct the bridges and update the engineering structures. - Ed.)
But maybe it will be easier for vehicles on frozen ground?
- You can’t wait a day. The ice on the Lena will make it non-navigable, and after all, the delivery of everything and everything to these parts passes along the river by vessels carrying out northern deliveries. It is extremely important to have time before the cold weather to create a stock of food and fuel in the settlements of the region.
The situation is already complicated, and, again, paradoxical. In the south of the Far East, an unprecedented flood, and in the upper reaches of the Lena there is little water: the depth in some places is about a meter. So that the ships do not sag much, they are loaded by a third. Strange, but locals rely on autumn rains that would raise water in the upper reaches … Be that as it may, already delivered goods need to be rushed off from the ports along the uluses (in Yakutia - the analogue of the term "district". - Ed.). Therefore, we are obliged to bring federal roads as quickly as possible to a state that allows us to bring food and fuel to people as close as possible, and how to know what is more important. The distances here are enormous. By the way, aviation is now dumping products in remote uluses. But for the supply of fuel for the winter, no aviation is enough.
Ruins after the flood: the life of the uluses depends on the roads www.zr.ru
Barrage paraphernalia lifted up to one and a half meters above the plane of the roadway, they stretched for several hundred meters. Barrage paraphernalia lifted up to one and a half meters above the plane of the roadway, they stretched for several hundred meters.
On the trip, you, of course, evaluated the state of federal highways - they are under the guardianship of Rosavtodor. But they also saw the condition of local roads …
- Many are simply lost: not only road clothes were washed away, but also the grounds. Others are in a state of complete obstruction, others are still under water. I can’t even give a general assessment of the damage.
Roman Vladimirovich, the road workers probably had a hard time?
- To be honest, I still feel uneasy because I didn’t appreciate how difficult it is … Somewhere on the border of Yakutia and the Magadan region, our car was badly shaken on the bumps of the repaired area. Really could not better align ?! Soon we arrived at the brigade - there were two graders, a bulldozer, an excavator, the workers were changing the crosspiece of the grader cardan. I reproach: how so! And they told me: it’s possible, we’ll go home for a day’s washing, and then for a month and a half we only know the trailer and packed ration … I looked at them: exhausted, these months had been reflected on gray faces for seven and a half days without work for tens and hundreds of kilometers from civilization …
Ruins after the flood: the life of the uluses depends on the roads www.zr.ru
The two on the left are the same guys. (The far right is Roman Starovoit). The two on the left are the same guys. (The far right is Roman Starovoit).
It was not easier for them near the settlements. In one of them, residents - not bosses, but ordinary people - said that the road workers just saved them. Here, as in many places, the road embankment played the role of a dam: on one side - a lake that fills, on the other - dwellings. Having strengthened the embankment, sharp-witted workers began to regulate the discharge of water: the drain pipes under the road, “aimed” directly at the houses, were blocked, and those located at a distance were constantly cleared (a huge mass of garbage in the water constantly clogged the pipes) … So, the road workers weren’t just worked - fought.
How much will the restoration of the federal roads of Yakutia and Magadan cost? Will Rosavtodor have enough funds?
- For now, we will maneuver with what we have, - we will postpone it to better times, which can be postponed. For example, four days were not enough to concrete the last two supports under the bridge over the Kolyma River - the flood had demolished the ready-made formwork, and at the same time a dam and an access road. It’s a pity, they were planning to open the bridge in October, residents were waiting for it … Now, we still don’t have time by the deadline - we put the facility into operation next August, and we will send the released money to facilities that require urgent intervention. We will follow this principle, but we will try not to touch investments intended for the development of other federal roads.
