Billings City Council grants emergency financing for the Gabel Road sinkhole

Billings, Montana – The flash flooding that occurred over ten days ago is still causing the city of Billings a lot of problems.

The sinkhole on Gabel Road is one of them.

To hasten the remedy, the Billings City Council approved an emergency resolution.

Extremely high flow on Hogan Slough at Gabel Road east of South 27th Street West was produced by early-June heavy rains.

The culvert and the road were destroyed by the overflow.

The resolution was accepted by the City Council, granting the city administration permission to spend about $500,000.

It would take around two months for the permission before building could start if the city had to follow the standard bid process.

“If we hire an engineer and go through all those standard advertising periods, that time even to get the pipe is very extended,” said Mac Fogelsong, a city engineer for Billings. In order to get it changed quickly, this gives us the opportunity to kind of start ordering pipe work on the design and work on the remedy at the same time.

Fogelsong anticipates that Gabel Road will reopen in a week or less thanks to temporary repairs.

When the outdated pipe is replaced, the road will eventually need to be closed.