DINGMAN’S FERRY – A year ago, heavy rain from Tropical storms Irene and Lee washed out part of Route 209 north of Route 739.  The road, between Milford and 739, has been impassable since.

If all goes as planned, 209 will reopen to through traffic on November 2.

To accomplish that, work is continuing around the clock.  Part of the mission is to make sure what happened a year ago won’t happen again.

“Underneath the road we’ve established drainage and also a retaining wall to actually hold everything together, so it should prevent any storm damage in the future”, said Rich Degnan, Chief of Maintence for the DWGNRA, during a media tour Friday morning.  “This will keep it back from a similar event from what we had”.

Also being reconstructed is a stretch of the McDade hiking train, a portion of which was washed out. 

Project managers insist this will all be done by November 2