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  • County road repair crews were repairing washed out roads Monday. County Road 1525, near Etha, was partially washed away during heavy rains over the weekend. Tiffany Green

    Heavy rain repeat

  • County Road 1716 in the Brooklyn community was completely washed away after heavy rains this past weekend. County road crews were out Monday repairing the roads. Tiffany Green

    Heavy rain repeat

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May 4, 2010

Heavy rain repeat

By Tiffany Green The Cullman Times

GOLD RIDGE — A few county roads were completely washed away after heavy rains over the weekend.

Roads crews were up early at County Road 1525, in the Etha community, repairing damage.

“It was almost washed away completely,” said Gerald Gaddis with the County Road Department, East Side, District 3.

Crews were replacing the drainage pipe that was left in the woods.

“The pipe washed out,” Gaddis said. “We will put the pipe back and fill it back in.”

Crews were at the same spot last week after the heavy rain.

“The roads are made for heavy rains, but not flooding,” he said. “Whenever we get flooding, this happens.”

The Cullman County school bus route follows the road and crews hoped to have it redone by the end of the school day.

“The bus comes all the way through so we have to get it fixed,” Gaddis said.

Doug Williams, East Side County Commissioner, said this does not happen often.

“We haven’t had any problems like this until last weekend,” he said.

After heavy rains and damaging tornadoes came through on April 24, crews were out in full force repairing washed away roads. County officials also received confirmation that the damage to roofs on that April weekend was caused by an EF1 or EF2 tornado. The determination was made by the National Weather Service.

“If we have that much rain in a short period of time, it just overtakes our ditches,” he said. “The pipes just couldn’t handle the water.”

Williams said when roads are built and pipes are put into place, engineers determine how much water will run through a particular area.

“This was just more water at one time than was anticipated by the engineers,” Williams said.

County Road 1716 in the Brooklyn community was destroyed after the rains and was in need of repair.

The road was completely washed away and impassable.

Other washed away roads were County Road 637 at the intersection of 617. Motorists will also need to avoid 722 and the dead-end at 514., said Phyllis Little, director of Cullman County Emergency Management Agency.

“The road department is at work on these roads and others,” Little said. But we need everyone to be patient and extremely cautious.”

Roads that are passable but demand extreme caution include 1492, 1488 and 1401.

Culverts are washed out on those roads, which are primarily in the east end of the county in some northern areas, Little said.

“All of the affected areas have alternate routes, but we need everybody to just slow down and use extra caution,” Little said. “If you see water in the road don’t go through it. You don’t know what’s underneath it. And if the water is moving, it only takes a few inches to sweep away a car.”

Little said 5-7 inches of rain fell across Cullman County on Sunday. She said more heavy rains and storms could be arriving this weekend.

National Weather Service meteorologist Jennifer Lee said Cullman County got quite a bit of rainfall.

“In a 24 hour period, from midnight Friday night to midnight Sunday night, the Ag Station got 4.22 inches, the USDA Office got 3.47 inches and the Vinemont Airport got 2.34 inches of rain,” Lee said. “Cullman did quite well in terms of precipitation.”

Lee said this amount of rain in a short period of time will cause problems.

“Any time you get a lot of water in a short period of time, you can get flash flooding,” she said.



* Tiffany Green can be reached by e-mail at tgreen@cullmantimes.com or by telephone at 734-2131, ext. 220.

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