Severe storm clean-up focuses on washed out road

By Lindsey Ward

Published: May 14, 2008

Rocks filling in a massive hole is probably not your typical severe storm clean-up, but after last Thursday’s heavy rain and winds it’s what’s left to fix in Martinsville.

“It was just a big crater in the road,” said Kerry Tillery, who lives across the street from the hole.

“This is probably the worst situation we’ve had here in a long time,” said Leon Towarnicki, Director of Public Works.  “This is really the first instance of this type where we’ve had a major pipe that’s washed out and caused a road collapse.”

It’s expected to cost $75,000 to complete this entire project.  Towarnicki says all the rain water and debris was simply too much for the old drain, causing it to bust, caving in the road.  They hope to have the new pipe completely in by Thursday.

Once crews finish and the pipe is working, they will begin filling in the area with dirt, raising it to the level of the road.

Kerry Tilley says it’s an eye soar for now, but it is much needed work.

“Every time there’s a big storm or rain that pipe was not big enough to hold it, so it would back up,” Tillery said.

Just a few minutes away from the whole are more efforts to fix storm damage, after a neighboring house flooded.  Public Works employees were working to find holes in the sewer line, so rain water won’t flow into basements.

Both the busted sewer line and the hole are expected to take several weeks to fix.

With a chance for rain this week, they hope more storm damage isn’t also in the forecast.