By By Adam Prestridge
Motorists traveling through Atmore will have to deal with another detour within the next week.
Workers with Hosea Weaver &Sons of Mobile have been hard at work the past two weeks repairing a four-mile stretch of both the north and southbound lanes of Hwy. 21 through Atmore in preparations for its repaving.
Dennis Chance with Hosea Weaver &Sons said 60 working days have been allotted for completion of the project, but weather could assist in an early completion or cause the project to run over a few days.
"Weather can change everything," he said.
Hosea Weaver &Sons was hired by the Alabama Department of Transportation to perform the work, which will include narrowing a portion of Hwy. 21 from four lanes to two lanes.
"We worked on trying to get the railroad tracks repaired before they did the paving in town where they can tie it together and make a nicer job out of it," Atmore Mayor Howard Shell said. "This is a big safety issue too that we've worked for several years trying to eliminate the traffic problems that we've encountered at the intersection of Craig and South Main Street where we've had a number of accidents. As a result of the paving through town, they're going to re-stripe the streets beginning at Burger King and terminating about where the Assembly of God church is making it a two-lane road instead of four-lane road with a turn lane in the middle and a red light will be installed at Craig and South Main with a turn signal on it to prevent turning in front of oncoming traffic."
When paving reaches the downtown business area traffic will be rerouted to Trammell Street in order to clear the roadway of cars parked along the side. The detour will begin at West Horner Street at Church's Chicken and will end at East Horner Street at Burger King.
According to Chance, he estimates that the majority of detouring will begin Feb. 20, but again, weather plays a huge factor.