Overton County Roads Open With Temporary Fixes

Overton County is beginning to recover from flood damage that occurred on roadways.

County Road Superintendent James Norrod said the Dry Hollow and Rickman areas took the worst damage. Norrod said roads are open Tuesday with temporary fixes.

“We’ve set a lot of cones out at dangerous places,” Norrod said. “Something that’s narrowed down, you know washed out on the side, to warn people that something is there until we can get back and get it fixed proper.”

Norrod said he anticipates it will take a few weeks to get all the roads back to normal. Norrod said drivers still need to travel with caution because of the potential for falling trees.

Norrod said the county was just catching up with all the debris from the February ice storm. He said that debris played heavily into the damages.

“It took out some pipe where there was debris left from the ice storm,” Norrod said. “Of course all that washed down, stopped a lot of pipes up and took several pipes out. It left debris all in the road that we’ve had to go clean out.”

Norrod said there are spots where water got underneath and took the pavement out. He said ditches are being filled with rock to prevent pipes from getting clogged.

“Hopefully this rain tonight won’t take that back out,” Norrod said. “Just to get people through until where we can go on and get the next one.”

Norrod said the only road that was still closed on Tuesday was Columbia Hill Road. He said this is a gravel road in the county.