Rain leaves its mark on roads and highways in North Mississippi

OKTIBBEHA COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Rain and roads don’t mix well.

Lately, we’re seeing the truth behind that as we hit the highways.

Recent heavy rains have left an impact on roads all over the state, including in north Mississippi.

Washouts and potholes are big concerns for many road departments including, Oktibbeha County’s.

On Monday, workers began to tackle some of the problem areas, but with so many miles of road to fix, and more rain and cold weather predicted, concerns keep growing.

We’ve all been there, driving down the road and all of a sudden you hit a pothole or rut.

Your tires worst enemies seem to spring up more after a heavy downpour and when it’s cold outside.

Oktibbeha County is feeling the weather’s impact.

“The excessive amount of rain has increased the problems in all of the counties. What happens, is these paved roads that already have some base failure in them, some cracks in them, when the water fills the cracks and the vehicles drive over the cracks, it just makes more potholes, and then one car gets in the pothole, and it gets larger and larger, so we’ve seen that a lot,” says Oktibbeha County District 4 Supervisor Bricklee Miller.

Miller says repair is only half of it.

There are also extra maintenance issues.

“Of course, on the dirt roads in the county, just the ability for the water to flow off of the roads and the culverts filling with the leaves and stuff.”

That’s also something the county tackles on a regular basis.

“In district 4, we’ve resurfaced about sixteen miles of roads already in this term, so the newer roads and the resurfaced roads are not seeing these issues, but you have so many miles of roads that still needs some maintenance.”

Miller says a break in the rain will give them a chance to get to work on filling those potholes.

“You have to rake the water out of them before you put the coal mix in, because if you don’t, it just comes right out. It won’t stick to the base and then as far as cleaning the ditches, we’re just back to cleaning the ditches and grading our gravel roads, you know, to pull that rock back to the top, so they’ll be easier for our constituents to drive on.”

Miller says road work will continue as long as the weather stays dry.