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DATELINE DULUTH — Law enforcement authorities are continuing their search for an Iowa couple visiting Duluth who have been stuck in traffic wherever they go due to road construction.
The couple, Fred and Julia Davenport of Keokuk, Iowa, has been in constant I-phone contact with Duluth acquaintances and also police, but remain missing as they attempt to make their way into and through Duluth on a tourism visit with their two children, Helen, 11, and Troy, 9.
“We can’t find Lake Superior,” Julia Davenport reported to local contacts as they waited in a three-mile line of vehicles on Interstate 35 stretching from western Duluth through the downtown. First-time visitors, the Davenports had been hoping to see the big lake as part of a pre-Labor Day vacation trip to northern Minnesota.
Later, Fred Davenport told an acquaintance via smart phone that an attempt to make their way through the city on side streets had also been thwarted due to construction projects everywhere they went. “All I see are ‘Street Closed’ and ‘Detour’ signs,” Davenport reportedly told his contact.
Local officials played down the dilemma, saying traffic in some places might be slowed but is moving apace throughout the city. “People should be patient,” said J.J. Jingleheimer-Schmidt, a spokesman for the Public Works Department. “If it takes an extra hour or two to get through Duluth, well, that’s the price of having good roads.”
A movement to install portable toilets along clogged traffic routes where backups cause unexpected lengthy delays is under consideration but would be “very expensive,” according to city officials. “Do Duluthians want their hard-earned tax dollars to be spent on biffies for out-of-towners? I don’t think so,” said Lon D. Moe, co-director of Civil Evacuation for the city.
Meanwhile, the Davenports of Iowa are still contacting friends by smart phone as they attempt to make their way through Duluth and to see Lake Superior for the first time in their lives. Authorities believe they were located somewhere near the Garfield Avenue-Piedmont-Superior Street confluence close to where several businesses, including one automobile dealership, are mounting their own hand-painted signage on nearby back streets in attempts to direct customers to their doors through the labyrinth of road construction.
Reconstruction of a pedestrian bridge over Interstate 35 just west of downtown Duluth has caused closure of the freeway at times as workers install beams between uprights. At such times, traffic has been rerouted into nearby neighborhoods.
One resident of an affected neighborhood, Joseph D. Doaks Jr., said, “I can’t wait for winter when they can’t work on these streets. At least you can plow snow pretty quickly, and not wait weeks for streets to open.”
Word on the progress of the Davenport family through Duluth has slowed, with contacts concerned they might return to Iowa without ever seeing Lake Superior. “We’ve got to get our kids home before the start of school,” Julia Davenport told a Duluth acquaintance contacted on her phone.
The eventual fate of the Davenports has been couched in mystery.
Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.
