Wet weather forces county road crews to tackle pair of mudslides

Road crews cleaned up this mudslide on Tiny Branch Road Monday. It was the second big mudslide this past week they had to remove from rural roadways.

County road crews worked diligently last week and into this week to deal with a pair of mudslides the spilled across local roadways, trapping residents in for a short time who live on one local rural roadway.

Whitley County Judge-Executive Pat White Jr. said soaking rains over the past month are to blame for the slides along Tiny Branch Road, in the Frakes community, and Bunch’s Creek Road.

"The one on Bunch’s Creek is one we were afraid was going to happen," White said Tuesday. "We’ve been trying to get some grant funds to stop or prevent it because we knew it was an area that was going to cause problems."

White said the county has had engineers look at the area along Bunch’s Creek, and officials from a couple of different government agencies have inspected the area as well. But grant funds were never awarded.

"We were lucky it didn’t cause any damage there."

County road crews worked Thursday, Friday and part of Monday removing earth and debris from the 50-foot-long section of roadway on Bunch’s Creek that was covered about a foot and a half deep due to the slide. The roadway was impassable. White said the road is a dead end and that roughly four homes were located on the other side of the slide. Residents of those homes were blocked in for a time while crews made the area passable again.

White was on site with road crews Monday as they tackled another slide on Tiny Branch Road. Residents there had an alternate route they could take to avoid the blocked area, but crews worked hard to remove trees to keep them from knocking down utility lines that service the area.

"We got on these slides pretty quick and were able to maintain reasonable access for the people affected by them," White said. "That’s the most important thing when dealing with these."

Of the two, White said the slide on Bunch’s Creek Road was more significant.

Such slides are common when excessive rainfall weakens earth embankments along roadways.