Completed in 1966, the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier extends from Allens Avenue to India Point Park to protect Providence from flooding by the Providence River and Narragansett Bay, especially during storm surges riding high tide as in the hurricanes of 1938 and 1954. It defends the city by blocking surge waters and by pumping river water through the barrier into the Bay so the river does not back up. Its system includes armor-stone dikes reaching inland to land 25 feet above sea level, three river openings closed by 40-foot-square, 53-ton gates that curve toward the Bay and are lowered by chains and electric motors at 1 1/2 feet per minute, a pumping station with five pumps powered by 4,500-horsepower motors and capable of lifting 630,000 gallons per minute each, and vehicular gates at Allens Avenue and South Main Street that are swung manually into place during floods. In 1996, NEES subsidiaries New England Power and Narragansett Electric completed the repowering of Manchester Street Station, converting 1960's fuel-oil service into a modern combined-cycle system using natural gas as the primary fuel. Three new combined-cycle units with gas turbines and heat recovery steam generators were piped to steam turbines connected to existing generators, replacing three 1940's steam turbines. The project joined the nearly century-old 52,000-square-foot powerhouse with a new 56,000-square-foot turbine building, added a new switchyard, and left the plant generating six to eight times more power with a net decrease in air emissions, while also improving air quality, transforming the abandoned coal yard into Collier Point Park and Point Street Landing, restoring a historically significant plant, and improving the Providence waterfront.
