VIDEO: Drought Causing Road Problems For Drivers

LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI)-The drought we’re experiencing is continuing to cause problems in Lowndes County.

Cracked roads, uneven roads, and bumpy roads are all issues residents in district four have been complaining about lately.

“The foundation on the roads are obviously being affected by drought,” said Jeff Smith, Lowndes County District 4 Supervisor. “I’ve gotten a number of calls from people on my district wanting to know what’s going to be the plan for repairing the roads.”

Minnie Vaughn Road and Chat-Chew roads are just a few of the roads that have become a safety hazard for drivers.

As a result, District 4 Supervisor Jeff Smith brought attention to these issues during the board of supervisors meeting on Tuesday.

“I want my board to have some discussion about it because I thought it was important to the citizens of my district as well as Lowndes County that we talk about what we can do to assist the road department with their issues with funds to address road issues,” Smith explained.

Plans to make repairs on these roads are currently in the works.

“What we’re going to do, I’m going to get with the supervisors of each district, mostly four and five, and we’re going to go look at and justify the roads that are in the worst shape,” said Ronnie Burns, Lowndes County road manager. “We’ll start using some of our road plan money to write a repair for the most dangerous ones so we can get them back up to where they need to be.”

However, Burns said so far, roughly $200,000 has been spent on road repairs in the county.
“We have to spend extra money,” he said. “We usually have about 5 hundred thousand for maintenance and we use that just for the pre-leveling and stuff to get ready before we do our road plan but we’re having to get into that to keep the roads up to where they need to be.”

Which means in order to make a repair on a certain road in any of the districts, the supervisor of that district will have to take money out of its road repairs budget to fix those issues.

“Well it’s going to effect us some, but what we’ll have to do is come back and probably ask for some more money,” said Burns.

Burns said  tomorrow they’ll begin making repairs on Whispering Pines Road out in Crawford.

In today’s board of supervisors meeting…district four supervisor Jeff Smith said the drought is causing several roads in his district to deteriorate.