Bet you won’t find this kind of road construction happening around any city officials’ homes:
Jeff Helton says he hasn’t been able to sleep in weeks. His home overlooks Westheimer near Wesleyan, and for most of May, he says, a backhoe and jackhammer jolted him awake in the middle of the night.
“It’s like standing on an airport tarmac,” Helton said. “It got started right after rush hour and it would go on all night through the morning.”
The city’s Public Works Department said a contractor is replacing a 16 inch underground water line, and that the work must be done overnight to keep traffic flowing during the day.
Spokesman Alvin Wright said crews have been instructed to keep noise levels within the city’s noise ordinance, which requires any outside noise within range of a residential area after ten o’clock at night be quieter than 58 decibels or something between a normal conversation and a vacuum cleaner.
The sleep-deprived Houstonian complained to HPD and City Council, started a blog, and posted a video of the noisy construction on YouTube. Public Works spokesman Wright basically said it doesn’t matter since the noisiest part of the construction is over, but on his blog, Helton says HPD has told him the contractor’s permit has been pulled.
