Blog

admin Sep 05, 2016 News

Dirt roads cause problems after extreme weather

Monday, Sep. 5, 2016 News 12 NBC 26 at 6 O’Clock

AIKEN COUNTY, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) — They are bumpy, rough on your car, but some people say they are just part of the country.

“That’s part of the country and just living in the country,” Butch Dorman said.

Aiken County has 736 miles of dirt road compared to just 152 miles of paved road. Out in Windsor there are several, people like Taylor Bradish say it’s not good for any kind of vehicle.

“They get pretty bad all the time just from people driving on them, just wash boarded and bumpy, so driving the carriages on them is not good and my car not good,” Bradish said.

These roads only get worse when Mother Nature is involved like last weekend.

“After every storm they get rutted out definitely this road right here, the sides wash out and so it gets really narrow,” she said.

In Aiken County there are a couple ways to get your road paved, you can either petition the transportation committee or the county itself, but funds are limited.

In other places, people want to keep their dirt roads like the Horse District in Aiken, where the roads are protected from being paved.

“It’s part of the neighborhood and the character of this particular neighborhood,” Jennifer Matheson said, who lives in the Horse District.

Some people think every dirt road has it’s place though, like Dorman on Merritts Bridge Road.

“The city folks that come out here and say the roads are real rough, they are, I don’t deny that,” Dorman said, “But i drive my trucks up and down the road every day and I just have to drive slow because it’s rough.”

While people want the road to be paved, Dorman continues to petition against it, even with heavy erosion like this.

“Run the motor grater out here and come back out here again and do some work on it and it gets back in fine shape until it rains hard again,” he said.

Dirt roads are not for everyone though, if you live in Richmond or Columbia counties you can also request for a road to be paved, but funds are very limited.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Source: News