During the last 10 days, we have received between 9 to 12 inches of rain across Adams County.

Rainfall can have both tremendous positive and negative effects across our community. Usually it is good, however when we begin to have such an abundance, the results rapidly become negative.

During this time, the Adams County Road Department has worked tirelessly to ensure your safety on the roads. They have had to deal with more than a dozen mud slides making many roads impassable and blocked. Many of these are rural roads with single entry or exit points.

The county has also had many roads that suffered from excessive erosion which also forced some temporary closures. We had a few cases of water over topping levees and roads raising concerns for washouts.

If you take this along with trees falling over roads combined with flash flooding and harsh working conditions, you will get an appreciation for the job our road department employees do around the clock during these storms to keep your roads open and safe.

Our road crews are responsible for 528 miles of roads in Adams County.

Last week we had a major road problem up in Anna’s Bottom with a road washed out; then around the same time we had crews working in the southern tip of Adams County with similar issues while others were handling all the issues mentioned in the previous paragraph.

So one might ask the question, “What can the public do to help?”

To start, please be patient and understand that some things cannot be fixed in the middle of a storm, like washouts, potholes and erosion.

While we can clean up mud slides, repairing them is simply not feasible until after the storm has passed. Our crews spent a lot of time during the last month cleaning out ditches. Removing all the debris helps allow water flow to alleviate problems, however during heavy rains this rapid flowing water carries along with it floating particles, like leaves and sticks, that can quickly make a clean culvert or opening congested in a short period of time.

Potholes will get much worse in these conditions because of the water pressure created with passing vehicles hitting holes. Yes, the county does have two pothole patching trucks that run on regular intervals during adequate weather conditions. Unfortunately we cannot fix holes in the middle of a storm. As soon as we have some dry days we will work as quickly as possible to fill them.

One major note of public safety: please do not remove warning signs put up for your safety.

For instance, Cemetery Road suffered some damage due to erosion and water flow causing a section of the road to wash off.

County crews had to barricade the road three times, due to the fact someone kept stealing the barricade, barrels, cones and tape. This is a horrible situation that takes crews away from places they are needed, but more importantly puts the public at great risk should someone drive off into a washout.

Much like during hurricanes, straight line winds or tornadoes immense rainfall makes it difficult on everyone.

Our top priority in county government in all these situations is your public safety. So thank you once again for your patience during these challenging times and remember the sun will always shine again after the rain.

 

David Carter is the district 2 supervisor in Adams County.