BY CAROL MOSLEY
Special to the Telegraph
The small community of River Bend, between Graham and Brooker, was left with impassable roads after Hurricane Debby. The community of more than 50 residences banded together quickly to seek an immediate solution that would allow for emergency vehicles to get in and out if needed.
What they wanted was lime rock to fill the gaping holes and deep ruts. Local residents hit the phones to their commissioner and the county.
The residents are a resourceful bunch with many owning dump trucks and excavators that could do the work, and they were willing, they said, if they could just get lime rock from the county. They considered it a dire situation since there are bedridden elderly and disabled who were stranded. School is about to start and the turnaround at the entrance to the community would not support the school bus, so children would have wait on an unsafe road. These folks were not taking “no” for an answer.
This is not the first time they’ve had to deal with this on their private roads. Some sections have washed away in heavy rains before. And, they say they’ve always been able to get assistance from the county, or at least the lime rock to do it themselves. So, they were expecting that to be the case again.
But private roads are generally not permitted to be maintained by the county and are technically the responsibility of the residents who purchased homes along those roads. They found themselves in a legal conundrum they had not faced in the past that required a county commission meeting to approve the emergency request at hand.
At the entrance to the subdivision is a circular turnaround where the school bus usually loads and unloads the students. Then the road splits into two, Southwest 112th and 113th avenues. In the circular turnaround there is a large, round drainage catchment that they call “the bowl.” Broken culverts underground are left to carry the water to the bowl, where it is then supposed to exit onto an open concrete lined ditch and drain into Sampson River.
But when the lime rock washes off the roads and clogs the bowl, there is nowhere for the water to go but to create a river out of the roads. And the lime rock that washes out of the bowl builds up along the steep concrete lined ditch, with some washing into the river, altering the river’s depth and flow.
According to the residents, not being responsible for the maintenance doesn’t necessarily mean that the county and other agencies are alleviated from all responsibility, especially in the case of emergency situations. Emergencies demand action. And, they had Attorney General opinions that they interpreted to say that private roads must be made passable for emergency vehicles, but cannot be “improved” with public resources. They said the documents even indicated that usual protocol could be suspended in a declared emergency such as this.
The sheriff and fire chief confirmed that a fire truck and typical EMS vehicle could not get down those roads.
The residents say “the bowl” and its exit concrete ditch are county property and supposed to be maintained by the county. They claim the county hauls the lime rock away when they do clear the ditch rather than put it back on their roads. They say they’ve watched the roads drop as much as three feet over the years and that lime rock that was taken was used elsewhere. They say they are just asking for their own lime rock to come back to them.
Commissioner Diane Andrews called for an emergency commission meeting to get the decision made and action taken before the declaration of emergency from Debby expired, but was unable to get a quorum of three. Angry residents filled the Emergency Operations Center in anticipation. Andrews was able to pull together a quorum the following day and the people passionately made their case and got the answer they needed to pick up the lime rock the next morning and use it to make the roads passable.
Jessica Soulsby called for a meeting at her house for the community to develop a plan of action. “In the past, sometimes people would do it one way and others might complain, but if we come together as a community and all decide what to do then no one can blame anyone because it wasn’t done a certain way or another. This way, we are all in it together.”
And, band together they did. By early morning the trucks were at the yard getting the lime rock.
The roads were filled with tractors moving the lime rock around and their own excavators were cleaning the debris out of “the bowl” and in the deep concrete ditch where the water runs to the river. Folks in ATVs and golf carts were stopping by with water and sandwiches.
Nancy Benckowsky was slowing traffic on C.R. 18 while Jassy Crews, operating the excavator, slogged through watery lime rock in the deep ditch and piled it up to be reclaimed. “This is our lime rock in this ditch we’re taking back and putting back on our road,” Nancy explained. “It’s supposed to be a county maintained ditch. The county comes out here on occasion and instead of giving it back to us they haul it away and give it somewhere else. In the last 30 years I’ve seen my road drop three feet or more.”
Paul Still from Bradford Soil and Water Conservation District was out to assess the drainage structures and identify the source of the flow. His evaluation is that it needs a major re-do project but many things can be done now to mitigate damages until a major overhaul plan could be figured out. “The main thing is to identify where the water is coming from” he said. He’ll be bringing the issue up at the next soil and water board meeting.
Meanwhile, the community is determined to come up with a long range solution together. “We don’t want to live in the city. We live out here because we love country living. And, we don’t ask for much,” exclaimed Bill Hinshaw.
According to Soulsby, “There may be an impression that we’re a bunch of poor, uneducated people living way out here on dirt roads. That is not the case. We are well educated people with businesses who choose to live out here. We pay our taxes, shop in this county and buy gas that funds roads just like everybody else. We just want what’s fair.”
They don’t want a homeowner’s association, but they plan to form a coordinated effort to investigate the history of their community’s development and know exactly what are their rights. Andrews learned of a program through the National Guard that trains soldiers how to build roads. High hopes hang on such a fix as that, with functioning drainage culverts and ditches and the road raised and properly pitched. And, most importantly, identify and stop the flow that turns their roads into rivers.
Whatever it takes, the community says they’ve had enough this time. They want answers before the next major storm gives them a repeat event. Meanwhile, they’re glad to have gotten a promise from the county that lime rock that comes from Riverbend stays at Riverbend in the future. Until a permanent solution can be found, they are willing and able to do the work themselves to maintain the roads.
