FLOWERY BRANCH — Flowery Branch may end up spending $75,000 to $100,000 for repairs to a portion of Spring Street that collapsed last week after overnight steady rainfall, city officials said Wednesday.

The city is looking at several ways to pay for the project, including possibly draining most of the $104,000 it has left over from the 1 cent special purpose local option sales-tax program that expired this year, City Manager Bill Andrew told City Council.

Also, officials plan to see what they can get from an insurance claim, and Mayor Diane Hirling has written to the Georgia Department of Transportation seeking possible aid.

In the meantime, the city has built a temporary road across Mulberry Creek near where a culvert washed away on Dec. 9 and caused the road to collapse.

The collapse occurred where Spring Street dead-ends into the 50-unit Quad Oaks apartment complex. Residents and others, including emergency vehicles, had no way in or out of the complex until the temporary road was opened last week.

Andrew said the city is keeping an eye on the temporary road, particularly during rainy weather, but he believes it will hold out until a permanent fix is completed in January.

City officials have determined that "the culvert was very undersized when you calculate the drainage area, the watershed area, the flows to it," said City Planner James Riker. "... What was there was incapable of handling a 10-year flood."

The city is looking at construction options that will handle up to 100-year flooding with current and built-out development in the area.

Plans are to solicit bids "for all this work, which will be installing the appropriate culverts, covering the road and putting the sidewalk back with a handrail," he said.

"We’re going to ask for those bids to be returned to us no later than Monday midday," Riker said.

At Andrew’s suggestion, the council appointed Councilman Allen Bryans Sr. to review the bids with city officials, then either select a contractor or call a council meeting to make that decision.

Andrew said city officials favor a culvert system that can handle 100-year flooding with the area fully developed.

"It’s the gold standard," he said. "(Hall County) has indicated it doesn’t normally build these structures to the 100-year flood, but they normally don’t have neighborhoods that would be cut off completely."

Once the city decides on what it wants to build, "it will take seven to 10 days to get it here," Andrew said.

"Some of the structures have to be made, I think, up in Kentucky. ... We may not have this all back in place until the first or second week of January at best."