Tours at Alcatraz Island are stopped through Friday so that workers can reinforce the strength of the dock, which has suffered decades of effects from the elements.
National Park Service officials said in a website alert that people who had booked trips between Monday and Friday with Alcatraz City Cruises, the official tour operator for Alcatraz Island, received full refunds.
The island is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
Joshua Winchell, the chief of communications for Alcatraz Island, told SF Gate that the island’s closure had been planned to allow work to “specifically to repair and inspect the dock pilings.”
Alcatraz City Cruises Vice President of Global Public Affairs told SF Gate the closures “allow for required mechanical maintenance to landing infrastructure.”
The Great American Outdoors Act included a roughly $36.5 million project earmarked to restore and repair the concrete wharf at Alcatraz Island and to strengthen it against seismic activity.
Those dock restoration efforts include repairs to concrete piles, beams and slabs, repairs to steel casing for the piles and the installation of earthquake-resistant elements, officials said on the Alcatraz Island website.
Park officials for the island said on social media last August that the project was “nearing completion,” though they did not say when the repairs were supposed to be finished.
Around 1.4 million people visit Alcatraz Island each year.
Before the start of the repair work, the island’s concrete wharf had not been fixed up since it was completed during the island’s days as a notorious federal prison in 1939. In the years since the wharf was completed, ocean currents and general exposure to the elements have worn it down.
