Some West Palm Beach residents are fed up from now sleep, and they're blaming it on a nearby cement business.
Melissa Parnell recorded the late night noise on her phone Monday night.
"We can get any sleep around here," said Parnell.
Melissa and her four children live on Henrietta Avenue, less than two blocks from Cemex, a concrete supplying business.
"The beeping of the trucks, the sirens going off when the trucks are full. The men yelling."
The company has been running night operations for the Flagler Bridge project.
"You can't sleep," said another neighbor, John Reese. "The trucks. You can't sleep."
The night work isn't new, according to Cemex, and it's at the request of FDOT and the contractors.
However melissa was finally fed up with the late night noise when it fell on an important school night. state testing.
"i was given all these things to get my child prepared for their testing today…and they're still tired because this is what we hear all night long," said Parnell.
The location where Cemex is working, 7th and Rosemary, is considered a business not a construction site, according to City of West Palm Beach officials.
There are no city regulations for what time of day a business can operate and no permits required if they chose to work late at night.
However, this doesn't mean the company is exempt from the City's noise ordinance, something code enforcement will now be looking into after we brought this to their attention.
Cemex issued the following statement:
The CEMEX West Palm Beach plant has been in operation day and night for more than 50 years. This plant has supplied concrete to many of the projects and buildings in the West Palm Beach area, including the ongoing reconstruction of the Flagler Bridge.
In all of its operations CEMEX is committed, above all else, to the safety of our employees and the communities in which we operate. This includes meeting Florida DOT and contractor requests to supply material at night so that roads can remain open during the day to accommodate traffic. Work on the Flagler Bridge, for which night operations at the West Palm Beach plant have been required, has been ongoing since 2012.
We understand the Flagler Bridge project will require a number of additional nighttime deliveries of concrete.
At CEMEX we take our environmental stewardship, compliance and community partner commitments seriously, including complying with all federal, state and local regulations. At our West Palm Beach plant, among other initiatives, we have voluntarily:
- Replaced our typical loading horn system with a silent red/green light
- Installed low decibel back up alarms on equipment
- Re-routed traffic for night pours to Railroad Avenue (in lieu of Rosemary Street)
We welcome ongoing communication with members of our community so we may address any concerns they may have.
