At a recent Richmond Hill city council workshop, officials made it clear work on a new Sterling Creek bridge on Timber Trail had to start sooner rather than later, after the current bridge’s “concrete box culvert” design proved a catchall for debris and resulted in flooded area neighborhoods and homes during Hurricanes Matthew and Irma.

One step in the process to replace the bridge began last week, when council voted to spend $124,800 in special local option sales tax funds to hire the engineering firm P.C. Simonton and Associates, Inc., to begin designing a new single span bridge as well as analyze how the new bridge will impact Sterling Creek in the area, according to Richmond Hill Assistant City Manager Scott Allison.

And that’s just part of an effort to help improve drainage in that area, Allison said.

Workers have also performed ditch maintenance and re-grading in The Bottom on Mimosa, Pinecrest, and Wildwood. They’ve replaced culvert pipes with larger pipes in a number of areas around Melrose subdivision, cleared culvert pipes at Sterling Creek at the railroad crossing near Mainstreet as well as performed pipe maintenance there.