Heavy Rains Affecting County Roads
Crawford County District 2 Commissioner Jared Boast said Tuesday that weeks and weeks of heavy rains are affecting how crews can respond to washed out roads.
Boast’s comments came as a response to a resident who was hoping the county could do something to improve the road after a weekend of heavy rain May 21-22.
Tanya Dean described a muddy road and bridge that was unsafe for travel. She asked Boast if he had been down her road.
Boast said he had not traveled that part, but had ventured across 110 miles of roads on Sunday, May 22 to survey the damage.
Boast told Dean he didn’t have to drive down her road to know it was bad.
He said that it rained around two and half inches in two hours on Saturday. Heavy rains like that have already happened several times this year, Boast said, and it affects the maintenance.
Dean questioned why mud was being put over the bridge, but Boast said it was two or one-inch minus rock that was piling up.
“Do you ever ditch the roads?” Dean asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Boast said. “Every one of those roads in your area have been rebuilt in the last five years.”
Dean said Boast couldn’t tell her that in the past 50 years it hasn’t rained like it did the previous weekend.
Boast said it had, but the precipitation is getting worse and worse.
“We’ve had substantially more rain since 2015,” he said. “FEMA and SEMA records will show the assistance to the county to those roads in that time.”
Boast pointed out several heavy rain events, like the flooding of December 2015, spring of 2016, spring of 2017 and spring of 2021.
“There are roads in Leasburg that were devastated a year ago,” Boast said.
District 1 Commissioner Rob Cummings agreed, saying that not only were the spring floods a problem, but the winter storms as well.
“We’ll have a hard freeze for three days, then two days of mild weather and they become messy,” Cummings said.
Boast also said the county is having problems finding enough workers and materials, but told Dean they are working to clean up the messes.