Two weeks less two days ago we had a major flood in our locality. One of the effects of our inundation was that the road just east of our house was undermined by about four to five feet. There is a drop of approximately forty feet to the bottom.
Because there were so many of these incidents in the county it was late in the day before road barriers were in place.
For the first couple of days the road was barred like this:
One would think that would do the job. Not here! Traffic continued as if there were no barriers.
There is no rock fill under the road — only mud. Every time a vehicle passes the vibrations loosen more dirt, causing the area under the road to slough off more material, further undermining the road.
The county came out a few days later and installed more barriers and this is the present configuration:
Several sandbags have been added to make it more difficult to move the barriers but every day several do it. One recent night, about 11, a small pickup truck barreled through and drove right into the center barrier, breaking it in pieces and moving it about 100 feet. Some drive over the cones, others stop and move the barriers sideways, leaving them for some other dunderhead to drive through.
One woman told me, “It's so inconvenient to drive around.” “Yes,” I responded, “but not quite so inconvenient as waiting for the medics to arrive and pull you out of the creek.” She took the long — and safe — way.
I think the base problem is not inconvenience but a total disregard for law. Anyone with a lick of sense would know the signs are there for a reason. They would also know that they are there to protect people from possible injury or to protect the road from further damage. But then, those that drive through road barriers don't have a lick of sense. They are just plain stupid.
