Big Bottom Road Repairs Begin Monday

Construction set to begin Monday on Jackson County’s Big Bottom Road, repairs to the shoulders and ditches of that highway along the Cumberland River.

Jackson County Road Superintendent Daniel Garrison said the road will be closed between Dryden Lane and Lock Branch Road for the next two months. Garrison said the problems with the road surface are on-going because of the river.

“It’s going to be a lot of digging out, hauling off debris, bringing back in big boulders, staging back, repairing the shoulder with boulders to hold back the embankment and then resurface the road, of course, here in sometime, hopefully August,” Garrison said.

The latest slide on the road came in 2021, but Garrison said they have happened frequently over the years. He said crews are able to patch things with gravel to keep the road open, but at some point, they have to do a more extensive clean-up, like the one that begins Monday.

“The rolling river, you know, kind of eats around at the bank of the road and underneath and it just collects moisture and creates slide offs which a portion of one lane will end up sliding down towards the river,” Garrison said. “And, you know, and it consists of repairing the roads.”

Garrison said there’s no inexpensive way to permanently fix the road. He said the would involve extensive work on the bluff surrounding the river and widening the road.

“There’s a big long stretch of the river joining the road,” Garrison said. “You know, that this occurs, it just depends on what next area that, you know, may slide off in the river. It may be next month, it may be ten years before another one occurs.”

The work will take six-to-eight weeks. Garrison said he understands it will be inconvenient at time for the homeowners in the area. Garrison said they will work as quickly as possible to make the repairs.