“I know projects, when you’re working with FEMA, can be very long,” she said. “We’re going to be at about 18 months when we get this project done. This has actually moved pretty fast.”

The May 2015 flood also eroded a bridge abutment north of 14th Street and pushed part of the creek bank too close to the trail, requiring a 500-foot reroute to the east.

Olsson Associates did the engineering work, and the Parks Department asked for bids from contractors, hoping to have the trail reopened by the end of September.

That won’t happen. The search for a contractor slowed when it got to the city’s Purchasing Department, which can get log-jammed near the end of the fiscal year, Hartzell said.

“They had all of these contracts come in at the same time my bids were coming in. It slowed us down a little bit.”

The city ultimately hired High Plains Enterprises for just under $380,000. The company already has finished the short stretch south of Saltillo that connects with the Homestead Trail, said project manager Kevin Mack, and is working its way north.

Mack and others scouted the trail beforehand, so they knew what to expect when they arrived with their heavy equipment.