Unacceptable Road Conditions Discussed By Residents of Marshall County
Unacceptable Road Conditions Discussed By Residents Of Marshall County
MOUNDSVILLE - Each morning, Beth Bertram sits and waits for "her kids" to be delivered safely to and from school.
Bertram, Marshall County Schools' interim transportation director, has the responsibility to ensure all of the county's school students make it safely to their classrooms each morning, and then home again each afternoon.
There's always a high stress level when you take on the job of overseeing student transportation. But for Bertram, that's been compounded several-fold, as the county's roads are literally slipping away.
"Obviously our main concern is the safety of the kids, and the condition of the roads is making that precarious," she said. "We have places that we have pulled our buses back on the routes."
By that, she means bus drivers have determined, during the course of their route, that a road is unsafe for travel. Earlier this month, a bus driver actually got out of her bus and measured, with a tape measure, the area available for travel. She then measured the bus, only to determine that the few inches of extra travel was not enough to attempt the route.
"What scares me the most is if we don't pull one back in time," Bertram said. "So many of our roads, the asphalt is empty underneath and if we don't realize that and get a bus on it we can have something real tragic happen."
School bus drivers also have become the West Virginia Department of Highways' eyes on the roads. Bertram said bus drivers are very good about reporting back to her if they feel they are driving in a precarious situation.
Nearly 70 school buses travel the roads throughout the county each day, with dozens traveling secondary roads. Marshall County has 679.5 miles of roads, and the state has said there are more than 700 road slips in Marshall County alone.
The roads have deteriorated to the point that Marshall County has declared the roads in a state of emergency.
The problem in Marshall County, much like the rest of West Virginia, is that state road crews have performed little to no maintenance over the past handful of years - even with funding available. The Sunday News-Register last week also reported on tens of millions of dollars in federal money being available to help fix flood-damaged roads throughout the region - but only a fraction of the funding has been spent, and the money could go away by October of this year.
Bertram said she believes the DOH is "terribly overwhelmed."
"The state road (crews) really try, they are just so underfinanced and undermanned that they can't keep up," she commented. "I've been in a couple of meetings with them lately, and it's just sad the things they're trying to do and they just don't have the people or the money to do it.
"We get the feeling that maybe the people in Charleston don't realize the circumstances we have up here. I would love to take them out on a bus somewhere and show them what we're putting our kids in danger of. … One of the drivers said that a student told him the other day, 'If this bus goes over the hill, we'll be in the water,' and that to me just gave me chills."
Other residents are dealing with road concerns and issues of their own.
Lisa Wilson, a resident of Grand View Road, just outside of Grand Vue Park, said she is concerned for the safety of motorists traveling a section of the road near her home that has fallen into severe disrepair in recent months.
Wilson has notified the DOH numerous times about the issue, but the slip still has not been repaired.
"I've called them and called them … and at one point I told them if somebody gets hurt on this hill, on a motorcycle or something, they're responsible because I let them know about it," she said.
"They just need to get on it. It's very dangerous. Even for me to get in and out of my driveway - it's already ripped the bottom out of my car."
She said if the slip continues to grow, she will have to move the entrance to her driveway to even access her property. Wilson said she is very concerned for the safety of her daughter and grandchild who reside with her.
Moundsville's Greg Blake said the deteriorating roads throughout the county are causing a tremendous safety concern for area residents. He said he doesn't realize why we are paying "all these taxes" and the roads are in such bad shape.
"We go to Cameron a lot … and there are slips there that have been there for years. They've never done anything with them," he added.
Marshall County Administrator Betsy Frohnapfel recently echoed Bertram's comments -- pointing out that Marshall is a very large county, encompassing 500 square miles. She said it is as large as Ohio, Brooke and Hancock counties combined. Frohnapfel stressed, though, that neither she nor the commissioners believe that the DOH is neglecting its duties in Marshall County. Instead, they believe District 6 crews are doing the best they can with limited manpower, equipment and resources.