JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — City crews spent Wednesday assessing damage to Memorial Park in Riverside after Hurricane Idalia ripped through the iconic balustrade.
This isn’t the first time the wall has faced damage, just last year renovations were completed from destruction caused by Hurricane Irma in 2017 leaving some to wonder what can be done this time to make the wall last.
“It’s brand new, you hate to see new things get destroyed," Cecileo Coleman, who eats lunch in park, said.
Waves from the St. Johns river crashed into the balustrade during Hurricane Idalia. Some parts of that balustrade completely missing, others lie broken on the ground.
“The damage is very noticeable, I spending time trying to think how did it get damaged like that just from water only," Coleman said.
The decorative railing was just recently renovated after Hurricane Irma's storm surge in 2017 pushed it off its foundation and left the park's iconic statute underwater.
First Coast News asked the president of the Memorial Park Association, Patrick Emmet, why those repairs didn’t last.
“Dealing with mother nature, you just don’t know, and we had a lot of very smart people from an engineering and structural standpoint… We’ll know what the deal is we’ll know what happened and we’ll fix it," Emmet said.
Robin Smith, chief engineer of the city public works department, said an estimated $420,000 was spent on renovations after Hurricane Irma, and there could be ways to get that money back if there was a flaw in the design or a construction error.
Going forward, Emmet says they could use different material but the historic look of the balustrade won’t change.
Memorial Park was built in 1924 to honor Floridians who died in World War I and many are hoping the park will be repaired in time for its 100th anniversary celebration next year.
“What type of system can they use in order to rebuild it where it won’t take that type of damage anymore," Coleman said.
City leaders say crews will spend the next couple of days cleaning up damage at the park. As far as a timeline, for repairs the chief engineer says it’s too early at this time to know but they are looking at getting federal funding to complete any future projects.