The City of Knoxville on Sunday morning reopened Deane Hill Drive after a decades-old drainage system tie-in failed and caused a small section of the road to collapse four days earlier.

Deane Hill Drive will be closed again from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday and Friday, Dec. 10-11, while crews pave the road at the repair site, 7128 Deane Hill Drive, between Cheshire Drive and Morrell Road in West Knoxville. Detours will be placed to divert westbound traffic on Deane Hill Drive back to Kingston Pike or eastbound traffic back to Morrell Road during the paving.

To fix the problem, Public Service Department crews drained a retention pond, had 64 feet of concrete pipe that fit the existing drainage infrastructure rushed to Knoxville from Indiana, corrected the grade and water drainage problems, filled in the hole with dirt and laid gravel atop the site. This week’s paving will add asphalt over the gravel.

“I’m proud of the great job by our crews to get Deane Hill Drive reopened as quickly as possible,” said Chad Weth, the City’s Public Service Department Director. “It was truly a team effort. This was a tough repair project, and our employees worked around the clock for four days to get it finished.”

The section of Deane Hill Drive collapsed after an old underground metal drainage pipe had failed to adequately carry water underneath the road, causing water to wash away dirt and eventually cause the road to sink and the pipe to be smashed. Stronger concrete pipe was installed as part of the repair project.