Extensive Damage in County From Recent Rains
By Greg Ritchie
Messenger Reporter
HOUSTON COUNTY – While Houston County avoided some of the worst punishments from the recent rains, there are still hundreds of repair points across the county, with damaged culverts, road closures and Houston County Lake still closed for traffic. With more rain set for Thursday, county officials are still surveying the damage, making sure they don’t fix something which will wash away again in a couple of days, given the amount of water still in the ground.
While no reports of fatalities or serious injuries were reported, the heavy rains trapped some rural residents, leaving others to take alternate routes home, while several county roads were still under water.
Houston County Office of Emergency Management’s Heath Murff spoke with The Messenger, after spending much of the morning inspecting conditions in precinct one, along with Commissioner Gary Lovell. Lovell’s precinct alone had “hundreds” of issues, with the other precincts in similar condition.
Murff said Houston County Judge Jim Lovell’s disaster declaration would open the county up to state and federal help, as long as the county and state damages were enough to qualify for the assistance. While federal help is always welcome, it will most likely be years before the money actually reaches the area – in the meantime, county officials are on their own, especially regarding paying for repairs.
Some of the work can be done by the county’s in house crews, while more extensive damage will require outside contractors to get things patched up. Some work should take days, but other projects might take months. The county is operating on a triage system – fixing the biggest problems, first. Luckily, most of the closed roads are secondary roads, where locals can access their homes or leave the area using other routes. It will be inconvenient and add minutes to commute times, but with so much rain in such a short amount of time, not all repairs will be quick.
Murff is looking over the damage, with one weary eye on this week’s forecast.
“Some of these are little fixes, a little blowout here – it’s a temporary fix. It may blow out again Thursday if we get two to three inches,” Murff acknowledged. “It’s a vicious cycle we’re in, right now until things dry up a little. No one wants another drought, but we can’t repair these roads in muddy water or with water still running through the hole.”
Murff himself is fighting the road conditions to get them fixed and knows how nerves can run thin. He asks people to not make things worse by getting in too much of a hurry or ignoring ongoing work.
“Don’t go around barricades or a ‘Road Closed’ sign. Don’t try it. You’re just going do more damage and possibly put yourself in need of a rescue or risk of injury,” Murff said. “Be patient with the commissioners – that one spot on your road is not the only spot they’re having to deal with right now. We are talking hundreds of spots that are damaged and some of them are pretty bad. We are having to deal with multiple wash-outs on one road. To make it passable, might be inconvenience, but we’re all in this together. It’s affecting everybody. We just need to be patient.”
Greg Ritchie can be reached at [email protected]
