Trump Orders Drawbridge at Shinnecock Canal

Many people reported last week seeing surveyors in military uniforms taking measurements on the Sunrise Highway bridge where it crosses the Shinnecock Canal. The surveyors were here for a couple of days, but have since left, saying the work they are doing is incomplete. Though the plans they worked from were  accurate, the initial design called for just one drawbridge, and now it turns out there needs to be two, side by side. They will be back, with corrected plans. And yes, this will slow the project down. The drawbridge had been ordered completed by Memorial Day weekend.   Now, it might not be operational until the Fourth of July weekend.

On the other hand, the delay might be less. This is the same U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that rebuilt all the sand dunes in downtown Montauk in just six days. They can make short work of a drawbridge.

The order to build the drawbridge came from Mar-a-Lago, the home of then President-elect Donald Trump, who had been expected to come out to the Hamptons on New Years Eve for a party in his honor at the oceanfront home of Subway Commissioner Bill Aspinall on Meadow Lane in Southampton. On his way to the party, however, the presidential motorcade, which began at Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton after Air Force One set down, got stuck in an impenetrable traffic jam caused by an accident in the eastbound lane of the Sunrise Highway right on the Shinnecock Canal bridge. The motorcade had to turn back. And Trump missed the party.

The next day, after returning to Mar-a-Lago, Trump vented his frustration and announced he was issuing a pre-inauguration executive order, the first of its kind, to have the military fund and build a drawbridge over the canal.

“I want it up and running by Memorial Day,” he said at a Mar-a-Lago press conference. “We have to take control of who we can let into the Hamptons and who we can’t.”

The media, shocked, all tried to talk at once at this point, shouting that this kind of elitism is not allowed in this country, but Trump cut them off.

“I’m not talking about who. I’m talking about how many. When there are too many cars in the Hamptons, we must raise a drawbridge and not let any more cars in for a while.”

Trump spoke about the drawbridges leading from West Palm Beach to Palm Beach.

“We have control here,” he said. “And the drawbridges are useful for other reasons too.   Large yachts have to get under those bridges.   Years ago, I had such a yacht. It was the biggest yacht in the world at that time. But it couldn’t fit under the bridge at Shinnecock. When I tried to get to the U.S. Open in Shinnecock by coming through the canal, I was stopped and forced to sail all the way around Montauk Point because there was no drawbridge at Shinnecock. And even then it turned out we couldn’t get into Sag Harbor or Montauk. We were too big. We anchored offshore.

“And another thing. Back in the day, before my first term, we had protesters wanting to come to Palm Beach. So I just called the authorities, great people, and they held the bridges up so they could not get in.”

After these comments, Trump began talking about Greenland and Canada, the Panama Canal and the Gulf of Mexico and changing the name of New Mexico to New America before eventually circling around to his order for a drawbridge at Shinnecock.

“Get Sean Duffy, my Secretary of Transportation here. And I want the general of the Army Corps of Engineers here to measure it up and build it.”

One thing you can say about President Trump is that when he wants something done, he gets it done on time. But in this case, he couldn’t.

The Sunrise Highway, which crosses the bridge, is a divided highway, with two lanes coming eastbound and two lanes going westbound. If you raise the bridge when the Hamptons is “full,” nobody can get in, yes, but also nobody can get out. So there would still be the same number of cars in the Hamptons and the neon sign reading “full” would never change to “normal.”

What was really needed were two drawbridges side by side, so when one’s up, the other can be down.   Cars go in, cars go out. It only works that way.

Trump, in the White House when he learned about this from the Army Corp of Engineers surveyors before they left, reportedly threw a McDonald’s Big Mac at Secretary Duffy, but missed. It did, however, hit the wall just a foot below a painting of Jimmy Carter hanging in the Oval Office there, splattering ketchup on it.

“I wanted this done by Memorial Day,” Trump shouted.

The urgency came from the fact that only a special kind of steel, made in China, can be used for the drawbridge. It needs to be ordered before Trump’s 60% import duty tax on Chinese goods kicks in.    And that, he expects, will be in mid-June. This could be a real mess.

Most Hamptonites seemed happy the double drawbridge is being built.

“I’m told Elon Musk’s new drone business will monitor the traffic,” Suffolk County Legislator Nichols said. “That’s gonna be something.”

The drones, making continuous videos, will monitor the number of cars in the Hamptons, then automatically order the two drawbridges open or closed to keep traffic flowing peacefully.

“I want to meet Mr. Elon,” Charlie Hendrickson, a barber in Hampton Bays, said. “I want to work for him.”

Ted Barnes, who owns a waterside café along the eastern shore of the Canal said “many more billionaires will be able to bring their yachts through. It’s a win, win.”

“What a blessing,” said Mayor Carl Blasphemy from Southampton. “Imagine finally having the traffic under control.”

“The double drawbridges will be a tourist destination,” noted Martha Penderson, head of the Hampton Business Association.

“The best part of this,” Southampton Mayor Willard said, “is that besides yachts, the VIP limos and Hampton Jitney and Ambassador buses will not be affected. When an inbound one arrives with the drawbridge up, a pushbutton override will make one of the two outbound lanes into temporary inbound lanes. Public transit will become the gold standard, and the billionaire class will get its privilege. All good.

All this, thanks to Trump.