Lake Mary — Residents and regular users of the Lake Mary Road are concerned that one good rain could wash it away.

The road, portions of which are located in both Adams and Wilkinson counties, is often subject to washouts and sloughing due to water erosion.

At one point in the Adams County portion, the road is only 12-feet wide with a drop-off on both sides of the road because of the water damage.

Adams County farmer Ross McGehee said he has to cross the narrowest portion of the road to access the farmland he uses in the area, and he said he doesn’t like it.

“There are thousands of acres of recreation access and farming access — and maybe school access — that are going to be affected if it collapses,” he said.

Lake Mary Road resident Jean Ann Jenkins — who lives in the Wilkinson County portion of the road — said the problem she sees most often is water running across the road because Percy Creek is full of silt.

“The creek washes out what little loose sand they have been able to put on (the road, and it is so silted up, the creek is so shallow, so filled with sand, that any time we have a hard rain it jumps the road and washes more sand into the creek and washes the road away,” Jenkins said.

Adams County Engineer Jim Marlow said he has looked at the Adams County portion of the road about which McGehee was concerned. The damage there was the result of sloughing after high water events, he said.

Marlow said he also took representatives from the state aid road program to look at the site last Friday to see if it could be repaired with state aid money.

But while the county engineer said drivers would need to be careful when driving on the narrow roadway because it is narrow, he doesn’t think they’re in imminent danger.

“Use caution if you’re going down there, as you would with anything,” Marlow said. “There is another place down there in Wilkinson County where the road is very narrow, and it has about a 25-foot drop-off on it. It is only 16-feet wide in places anyway.”

Marlow said he does not anticipate the road to blow out or otherwise fail.

“At this point, it is something that is going to require monitoring and using caution, but we drove across it Friday.”

Construction crews working on the Lake Mary spillway project have been able to move their equipment through without any trouble, Marlow said.

What the ultimate solution will be is yet to be determined.

“We are just in the early stages of trying to get something going,” Marlow said.