Flooding Causes Road Closures, No Solution In Sight For Prevention

Bridge at Willie Webb Road at the Brownsville Bridge boat ramp, January 20, 2017.

Edmonson Voice Staff Report
Portions of three county roads are closed until further notice due to water over small bridges as a result of the recent heavy rains. 

​Willie Webb Road on the Brownsville Bridge boat ramp side, Cedar Grove Church Road (Bee Spring side of bridge) and a portion of Black Gold Road are all currently closed.

Edmonson County Director of Emergency Management Pat Prunty said that unfortunately, there's really not a viable solution to prevent this from happening in the future.

"These are the same areas that flood each time we have heavy rainfall like we've recently experienced," he said. "This has been going on for years and the people that live in these areas have grown accustomed to it and they know they have to find an alternate route."

---

Water is over the railing at Cedar Grove Church Road bridge in Bee Spring.

Prunty said the only solution would be to reconstruct the bridges at higher elevations which would cost the county hundreds of thousands, even more, which is simply not possible with the county's budget.

"All counties have this problem in some capacity," he said. "As a county, our roads are actually in better shape than most of the surrounding counties," he added. "There are some surrounding counties that still have miles and miles of gravel roads, and their blacktopped roads are in bad shape, so we still feel like we're fortunate to be in the position we're in as far as our roads are concerned."

The bridges will reopen once the water levels recede, but the timeframe is uncertain with more rain in the forecast this weekend.