Grady County rural roads sustained significant damage from incessant and often heavy rainfall this year.
Commissioner Ruth Bingham of Chickasha said road damage in her District 2, which encompasses approximately 510 road miles, included a washout in Blanchard.
She requested “about $250,000” for supplies, equipment and manpower to repair the roads in her district, she indicated, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency “did not approve any funding for rain damage in Oklahoma.”
District 3, which has 638 road miles, sustained “major damage” from heavy rains that started as far back as April, said Commissioner Gary Bray of Rush Springs.
One county road remains closed because of a washout, he told Southwest Ledger. Two pickup drivers “didn’t realize the road had washed away” and inadvertently “drove right into it,” Bray said. “They went down about 18 to 20 feet, and both drivers were hospitalized,” Bray said. “We’ll have to install a 10-foot tinhorn in that crossing.”
District 3 also had a washout “down by Cox City,” the commissioner said. “We’ll get to that one as soon as we can.”
Another repair site is northeast of Rush Springs, and that, too, “will be a major project,” he said.
East and south of Alex, a bridge survived the heavy rains but the approaching roadway was damaged. “That bridge was closed for about three months before we could even get to it,” Bray said. And then “it too k about 30 days’ work to get the approaches repaired and get that bridge back open.”
“We’re running about three months behind on our chipand- seal jobs because of damage to roads that we had to get reopened,” Bray said.
As for the cold shoulder from FEMA, “We’re on our own to fix these roads,” Bray said.
Oklahoma’s County Improvements for Roads and Bridges program does provide some financial relief “but it’s not that much,” Bray said. However, he added, “Every little bit helps.”
“We got as much rain as everybody else did, but we just had a lit tle bit of road damage,” said Commissioner Zach Davis of Tuttle, whose District 1 encompasses about 343 road miles.
One tinhorn underneath a road washed out, but that problem was repaired “easily enough,” Davis said.
“Our guys have been pretty keen about preventive maintenance,” he said. During the past two years, “We replaced a lot of tinhorns and implemented erosion control measures, such as planting grass.”
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