Highways works to assess damage from recent storms, lawmakers are told

Division of Highways officials told lawmakers that severe storms earlier this month resulted in an estimated $16 million in damage across five counties.

Those are Brooke, Marshall, Tyler, Wetzel and Preston.

Joe Pack

That April 2 storm damage should be eligible for federal disaster relief, Joe Pack, chief engineer of operations for the Division of Highways, told lawmakers today while speaking to the Legislative Oversight Commission on Department of Transportation Accountability.

A more recent storm and flood, April 11 and 12, has led 13 counties to submit damage reports, and the agency is now reviewing the extent of that damage.

“We expect to have numbers on this to get to the secretary by the end of the week so he can review it and ,make proper decision making for us and give guidance on how he wants to move forward,” Pack told lawmakers.

MORE: DOH developing plan for repairing landslide along key Kanawha-Boone county highway

Pack also told lawmakers the highways division is gearing up to patch potholes.

“We got a good head start in February, thanks to some warm weather,” he said, “and we also had cooperation from the asphalt industry who opened their plants in the offseason to provide us material.”

As of March 29, crews had placed 17,000 tons of material, enough for 90,000 individual potholes, he said.

Repairing the pothole is not the end, he said. There are often other conditions that require returning for more road repairs. That can include cracking or sags.

“We return later to address those,” he said. “Right now we want to address the wheelbusters that cause the most damage.”

Charles Clements

Senator Charles Clements, co-chairman of the committee, asked several questions about the interrelation between maintenance and storm damage. In particular, he asked about culverts that got clogged.

“They’re all stopped up and the water just comes down the ditch, and instead of going through the culverts it goes right across the road and washes outside the other side of the road,” said Clements, R-Wetzel. “It is a major problem in West Virginia.”

Pack responded with a discussion of “ditching,” which he described as work to ensure culverts, bridges or anything conveying water will drain properly.

“One blocked pipe, which can be blocked with a decent-sized tree limb and then a couple of milk jugs that pack behind that and then leaves and silt and then before you know it the water is going across the road and is eroding the embankment and causing a slip — which, that’s a lot of money to repair a slip,” Pack said.

Highways has worked to identify every pipe for a routine inspection on three-year cycles. But he said it’s still easy to block such pipes, especially during powerful storms.

“So we are increasing the amount of effort we are putting into those, replacing them when necessary,” he said.





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