Commissioners: ‘Staggering’ amount of rock needed to repair flood-damaged roads

The county has a “staggering amount of rock to haul” to repair damage from last year’s historic flood, Ozark County Western District Commissioner Greg Donley said Monday at the weekly commission meeting. While the east side of the county “only” needs about 80,000 tons of gravel for road repairs, the west side roads will require an estimated 204,000 tons, which equates to about 17,500 dump-truck loads, commissioners said.
With five trucks hauling six loads a day, working four 10-hour days a week, Donley estimates the project will take two years to complete. “A vast majority of the roads will see base rock added, some culverts replaced and several low-water crossings repaired or replaced,” he said.
“FEMA doesn’t pay for the trucks, but they pay for the work they do, and the driver too. And they pay for the gravel and other materials needed to do the work. FEMA pays 75 percent, and SEMA [Missouri’s State Emergency Management Agency] pays 10 percent, so in all we collect 85 percent of the damages.”
The western district currently has only three trucks, but the county opened bidding recently to add two more trucks to its west-side fleet.
Summit Equipment of West Plains presented the winning bid of $119,810 per vehicle for the two trucks. The dump beds will come from Bus Allen of Springfield.
At their Feb. 12 meeting, the commissioners voted to accept Southern Bank’s bid for 2.96 percent to finance the trucks. Donley expects the new trucks to be here by June 1, bringing the county’s fleet to nine total trucks.

Closures after last weekend’s rain
Discussing questions they had received about road closures related to last weekend’s heavy rains, the commissioners reminded residents they can only provide information for county-maintained roads and bridges. It’s up to the Missouri Department of Transportation to determine whether state bridges are safe to cross, they said.
The high water deposited debris and caused some gravel washout on the County Road 318 bridge over the North Fork River at Dawt and at Warren Bridge over Bryant Creek on County Road 328. But both bridges were cleared and reopened Monday. Eastern District Commissioner Gary Collins said a slab will be poured at one end of the Dawt bridge to prevent future washouts.
On the west side of the county, the crossings at Haskins Ford and Steel Tracks both remained closed due to high water as of Monday evening.

 

Ozark County Times

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