NATCHEZ — The overlay of Homochitto, Franklin, St. Catherine and Martin Luther King Jr. streets was delayed due to Hurricane Gustav, but only by two weeks.

The project was originally to start Sept. 8, but City Engineer David Gardner said the asphalt plant the city is using was out of power for a week.

“If we can’t get the asphalt, we can’t start the project,” Gardner said.

Once power was restored to the factory, it found it was behind on other projects, so the overlay project got slightly pushed back.

“It sounds like a valid reason to put our project off for one or two weeks,” he said.

So by the end of next week, the project should take off.

The order of the streets will begin with Homochitto Street, move to Martin Luther King Jr. Street, then to Franklin Street and ending with St. Catherine Street.

The work on all four streets will be simultaneous, but in different ways.

One crew will begin on Homochitto with milling, which is to pare down any built up asphalt from years of overlaying.

After milling, another crew will raise manholes and valves in the street slightly, so once the new layer of asphalt is laid, they will be flush to the asphalt, instead of slightly lower.

After that’s complete, the asphalt will then be laid.

Once the milling crew is done on Homochitto, they’ll move to Martin Luther King Jr., as will the manhole crew, and then the asphalt crew.

Each crew will continue to move in sequential order so three roads will undergo the different tiers of construction at once.

Gardner said this is the most efficient and quickest way to get the project done, however, drivers will suffer.

The crews will work on lane at a time so the entire road won’t be closed, of course, but there will only be one lane of traffic.

“We’ll have lane closures with flagmen on each end of the work,” Gardner said.

And with all the work going on at the same time, there will be multiple lane closures, he said.

This guarantees, though, that work will be completed quickly, instead of dragging on.

Homochitto will be done by Oct. 9, Martin Luther King Jr. will be done Oct. 14, Franklin will be done by Oct. 26 and St. Catherine will be done Nov. 6.

The projected completion date for the entire project is Nov. 27, barring any extenuating circumstances, Gardner said.

“That’s in a perfect world,” he said, thinking possible weather problems.

But Gardner was confident the project should be completed by around Thanksgiving time.