Arkansas county unsure if flood damage will change scheduled repair of roads

Dean Klingman, senior asset coordinator for the Benton County Road Department, adds to a pile of debris after recent storms Friday at the department.
Dean Klingman, senior asset coordinator for the Benton County Road Department, adds to a pile of debris after recent storms Friday at the department.

BENTONVILLE — Benton County officials say it’s too soon to gauge how last weekend’s flooding will affect the year’s road work plan.

County Judge Barry Moehring and Jay Frasier, public services administrator and head of the Road Department, briefed the Quorum Court on the 2017 road plan April 28. Moehring and Frasier also discussed a survey and assessment of the county’s paved roads that was used to grade the road conditions and identify roads and sections of roads selected for the work plan.

Over the next three days as much as 10 inches of rain fell in some parts of the county, causing widespread flooding and damage to roads and bridges. Frasier estimated at the height of the flooding that more than 90 percent of the county’s roads and 75 percent of its bridges were closed. County officials need time to assess the damage and then decide if repairs will alter the planned road work, Frasier said.

“Right now, we’ve got the majority of our roads open; at least we have them passable,” Frasier said Friday.

Dawson and Van Hollow roads and three bridges — Snavely Bridge, Stage Coach Bridge and Old Wire Bridge over Sugar Creek — will remain closed because of storm damage.

The roadway approaches to the three bridges were washed away, Frasier said. Before they can reopen, the county has to have state bridge inspections completed and have the damage documented and accepted by the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management and the Federal Emergency Management Agency so the county can be eligible for disaster assistance and recover some repair costs, Frasier said.

The county could recover up to 50 percent of the costs of repairing the damage if the storm and flooding remains a state-level disaster, said Robert McGowen, the county’s emergency services administrator. The county could be eligible for reimbursement of up to 75 percent of the repair costs if a federal disaster declaration is made.

Compiling information for state and federal agencies will continue for some time, Frasier said. The county has to compile its information and submit it to the state, which acts as a “pass-through” agency for federal authorities, he said. The county is taking photos that are time- and date-stamped and marked with location coordinates as part of the process before any temporary repair work is done, he said.

“We’ve got two or three weeks’ worth of work on them,” Frasier said of the damaged roads. “Once the site visits are done with [Arkansas Department of Emergency Management] and FEMA, we’ll still have a lot of work to do to get the roads up to about 80 percent of normal. But they’ve got to look at the damage and see it for themselves.”

Frasier said without the flood the Road Department would be preparing for the normal road work program. That work may change because of the need to do storm repair, he said.

Moehring said he thinks the county can hold to the road plan and use the information gathered in a recently completed survey, with some modifications. The county paid GreenbergFarrow $65,500 to do a video survey and pavement assessment of the county’s 800 miles of paved roads.

The company ranked the roads by their condition and need for repair or maintenance. According to the report made to the Quorum Court in April, 2.8 percent of the roads were in excellent condition, while 51.3 percent were in good condition. Another 31.7 percent were in fair condition. The summary showed 10.3 percent of the paved roads in critical condition and 3.9 percent were considered lost.

Some of that will change as the county identifies and assesses the flood damage, but much of it will remain unchanged, Moehring said.

“We’re identifying specific areas where there was damage,” Moehring said. “Our concern will be we may have some roads that were closed, but we don’t know the extent of the damage. Ford Spring Road is a good example. A significant chunk of that road was under water. But it was standing water for the most part. Now that it’s drained off, there probably won’t be too much change.”

Frasier told the justices of the peace in April that the department planned to do “65-plus miles” of paving work and repair more than 1,000 potholes out of more than 1,200 identified. The department hoped to increase the paving work for 2018 to more than 75 miles, Frasier said.

Pat Adams, justice of the peace and chairman of the Transportation Committee, said he hopes the county will get all of the planned maintenance work done in addition to repairing flood damage. Adams said he is willing to consider having the county hire contractors for some projects if that allows the Road Department to meet its work schedule.

“We ran into this in 2013 and 2015 when we had flooding,” Adams said. “My opinion, and the decision will be up to the county judge and to Jay, but my opinion is we ought to keep all of our options open.”

The Road Department has about $1.6 million in its budget for storm damage repair work and that will cover at least the initial costs, Frasier said. Comptroller Brenda Guenther said the county still has work from 2015 flooding to be completed that will also be paid from that budget.

Tom Allen, justice of the peace and chairman of the Finance Committee, said the Quorum Court will likely wait until more final damage costs are available before looking at the budget.

“I’m of the opinion that I’d like to see them spend out of that line item,” Allen said. “Once we have better information on what it’s going to cost, what FEMA is going to reimburse us for, we can look at the total budget.”

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