Traffic on M-26, in Houghton, just south of the Houghton Canal Road, is reduced to a single land in either direction as contractors work to repair the road after Wednesday’s heavy rain caused damage to the pavement. (Graham Jaehnig/Daily Mining Gazette)

HOUGHTON — Road repair on M-26, south of the Houghton Canal Road, continued Thursday after Wednesday’s heavy rainfall caused extensive damage to the pavement. Two lanes of the road have been closed since Wednesday.

Contractors for the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) have been working on the damaged areas since Wednesday afternoon. The initial work is expected to last more than a week.

MDOT Superior Region Media Representative Dan Weingarten said at this time, it is not clear specifically what caused the concrete pavement to fail.

“We’re still evaluating exactly what happened,” Weingarten said. “What is clear is that we were having some paving issues because of water in that area.”

Weingarten said there are two issues in that immediate area, one is a storm sewer and the other is a large cross culvert that crosses M-26 there, and it’s likely that both of those structures have some issues that M-DOT will need to deal with this project.

Although traffic has been significantly slowed by the repair work, traffic flow was proceeding smoothly Wednesday afternoon.

“The new traffic light installed there when it was was timely, and it’s  helping to regulate traffic,” Weingarten said, “especially with the heavy tourist traffic in the Houghton area this time of year.”

Weingarten asks that motorists please be patient while road work in the area is underway.

“Work will continue for a minimum of a week and maybe a bit longer,” he said. “We’ve got to get in there and get these structures repaired first, and then we’ll have to do some paving to get the road back, but we’ll have to do with it one lane in each direction,” adding, “but in the meantime, people are going to have to slow down, be patient and really drive cautiously through there area as we get equipment in there and get to work on it.”