The resurfacing of Cote St-Antoine is finally done. For a while anyway. The heavy machinery has fallen silent, the dust is settling and, little by little, the cowering citizens of NDG are timidly emerging to reclaim their front gardens and footpaths.
It wasn't quite a war zone but what a bloody noise those machines made! Worst of all was the orange brute identified on its flank as a Hamm HD+ 140 High Frequency. In this picture it looks almost benign, and its name reminds me of a HiFi audio component. But it flattened tarmac to a brutal soundtrack.
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| The Hamm HD+ 140 High Frequency |
It hit with two distinct sonic impacts simultaneously: the first a low frequency rumble felt in the chest (amplified in the swimming pool water where I'd taken refuge so that it almost took my breath away); the second a high-pitched whine that a Boeing would be proud of, that rose and fell and, just when you believed it had ended, rose again.
The noise was exhausting, draining, but the workers seemed not to notice it. They wore no ear protection at all. (Nor did they wear anything over their noses and mouths against the dust and fumes, or anything to cover their bare arms and necks in the fierce heatwave that ambushed us this June). Their work looked and sounded violent but was so precise: the thickness of each layer of tarmac carefully measured by one of them every few seconds as he stabbed the tarmac with a stiletto ruler, a second wielded a spirit level to check the camber from roadside to crown and along the channels leading to each drain. Most impressively the driver maneuvered the giant roller to within millimetres of each path.
Their last day, Friday, was a long one as they rushed to finish: 7 am to 7.30 pm. Next week they'll undoubtedly invade another neighbourhood in a blitzkrieg of resurfacing. But for us on Cote St-Antoine the rest of the summer is, hopefully, silence.
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