Construction workers are continuing work on the North Main Flood Project this week, as long as temperatures are above zero.

Public Works Director Steven Lang said work is moving north along Mill Pond as workers put in sheet piling and flood wall foundation this winter. Though frigid temperatures have slowed construction, Lang is confident the beginning stages of the flood control project will be completed by spring.

“The work that they’re doing, it’s achieving the goal where they’re able to get in there while the groundwater table is down,” Lang said.

That’s part of the work needed to put in sheet piling about 30 feet below ground to anchor the city’s new flood wall, Lang previously said workers will then put in concrete footing on top of the sheet pile, and then the upper portion of the wall and settings for the city’s “invisible wall,” a series of aluminum stop logs that can be stacked up to three feet past the high-water mark from the record 2004 flood.

The wall will be about 7 feet higher than North Main Street’s current elevation.

Workers will likely come north to the intersection between Main Street and Fourth Avenue next week, if temperatures hold. That means workers will have to close off the free right turn before the stoplights onto Fourth Avenue, but residents will still be able to turn right using the intersection.

To account for the difference, North Main Street from the Austin Municipal Pool to Eighth Avenue will be raised about two feet. The permanent wall will be constructed two feet higher than that, and the invisible wall will make up the difference.

The invisible wall’s flexibility allows the city to put in the aluminum logs whenever a major flooding event is forecast, which means the city would be prepared for floods even worse than the one Austin experienced in 2004.