News
Severe Weather Creating Long Repair List for Athens County Engineer
By: Atish BaidyaBy: Joseph Hennessy
Posted on:
ATHENS — The Athens County Engineer’s Office says it is swamped with repair projects as a result of the large amounts of rainfall over the past several months.
“We are working our butts off down here,” said Athens County Engineer Jeff Maiden.
Maiden says the large amount of rainfall has caused a number of landslides, washed out culverts, and taken down trees all across the county.
During the Memorial Day weekend, the county had to close five roads because of fallen trees and debris. Crews have worked to clear around 30 to 40 trees from roadways.
Maiden says there are currently 14 locations landslides that need to be cleaned up in the next three months.
But the biggest problem for Maiden and his team are old, rusted culverts. He says heavy storms and floods create big flows in culverts, washing out material out of the bottom of the culvert and creating sinkholes in the road.
“We’ve had a dozen culverts and sinkholes in the roads that we have to replace,” he said.
All the storm and flood damage has made the county eligible for federal disaster relief funds for the second year in a row. Maiden says his office has filed for reimbursement for an estimated $2.3 million in damages so far.
Maiden says he plans to meet with officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Wednesday to begin the process of confirming storm and flood damage from storms in February.