Another round of heavy rain that fell in much of Texas County during the early hours of Monday morning has resulted in another round of significant damage to rural roadways.
“Our guys don’t know which way to turn,” said Cass Township board president Jack Watson.
Watson said information is still being gathered as to the extent of the latest damage, but several roads in Cass Township are closed, including Bennett Road, Cunningham Road, Moberly Road, Oakdale Road and Rocky Bridge Road,
“We’ve been out all morning taking pictures of the situation,” Watson said. “It’s not good again.”
Watson said roadway damage this time was concentrated east of U.S. 63.
“Around Hamilton Creek – which is always a bad spot – there was no problem,” he said. “But Solo, Elk Creek and Tyrone were hit bad. What’s on the east side of 63 is pretty bad, but what’s on the west side isn’t quite so bad. And the farther west, the better it gets.”
Texas County emergency management director Bennie Cook said roads in Lynch Township and Piney Township also sustained significant damage. Cook said he has contacted the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) regarding the possibility of funding for repairs after this latest round of roadway damage.
“We’re hoping to hear something back from them soon,” Cook said, “and we’ll see where we go from there.”
President Barack Obama on Friday included Texas County in a disaster area declaration due to flooding earlier this summer, and funding will subsequently result to aid repair of roads and bridges.
“At least we have that,” Cook said. “If we don’t get any more, we’ll just have to use it as best we can.”
Watson said residents in the affected areas are being cooperative after this year becoming all-too-familiar with flooding.
“The people are getting to where they’re more understanding,” he said. “We get calls and they say, ‘put me on the list.’ That’s all we can do right now.
“We’re getting to the people first who cannot get in and out, and we’re asking people who can barely get through to be patient. We’ll get to them.”
With 2015’s recurring flooding, catching up with the workload is tough for township crews, and staying ahead is impossible.
“We’ve got several dollars worth of problems again in Cass Township, and we don’t have all the others fixed – the water won’t go down long enough,” Watson said. “We don’t even have everything fixed from the floods two years ago – and now it’s a whole new ballgame.
“We’re in bad shape, but we’ve survived it before and we’ll do it again.”