Floods, time erode road foundation

TWELVE CORNERS - Pea Ridge school buses were rerouted Friday morning to bypass a section of Twelve Corners Road closed due to erosion beneath the roadway.

Buses and all other traffic were routed up Dodd Road to access Gann Ridge Road Friday morning as a section of Twelve Corners Road was closed after it was discovered there was a huge hole beneath the road bed just west of Dodd Road.

Jack Brown, Benton County Road Department superintendent, said the road was very dangerous.

An erosion hole was discovered on the north side of Twelve Corners Road just east of Twelve Corners Church. That hole was as much as 10 feet deep and extended for more than three-fourths of the way beneath the road bed above the decades old culvert that had been rendered useless by time and decay, according to Brown.

“We had two years worth of work with what was already planned,” Brown said, adding that he had similar holes in two other areas of the county, which recent floods exacerbated.

Andrew Tillman, superintendent of Gateway Rural Water, said he received information from one of the board members that there was a sinkhole in Twelve Corners Road and wondered if a Gateway water line was leaking.

“Somebody called me. He had seen the hole and thought a waterline was busted. I didn’t find it at first,” Tillman said, adding that he continued to search the area when his wife saw it from the passenger side of the car.

Mrs. Tillman said they called Benton County Central Communications and her husband found a long branch, tied a reflector to it,and stood it up beside the road to warn motorists.

The deputy who drove by to investigate did not initially find the hole, either, but once he did, he notified the Benton County Road Department.

Shawn Alley, Road Department employee, stayed on the site all night. Signs were placed at Twelve Corners and Arkansas Highway 72 and on either side of the site warning motorists the road was closed.

“If a truck had come across that carrying that,” Brown said, pointing to the huge excavator sitting on the road waiting to be used, “it would have caved in.”

He said the road is traveled by school buses, feed trucks and other heavy vehicles and he wanted to avoid a disaster. Brown, who has been superintendent for about seven months, said there was a similar hole off County Road 74 in Avoca and another on the west side of the county.

“The two most recent floods probably did the most damage to this, although there could have been issues there before,” Brown said, initially anticipating having to use metal pipe to repair the damage. Later Friday, Grant McCracken, assistant superintendent, said concrete pipe was located that could be delivered Friday.

Upon investigation, it was found that the downhill side of the original 30-inch metal culvert was stopped up with debris. Surveyors worked the site to be sure the trench for the pipe would be slanted to encourage the water to flow toward the south.

Several county dump trucks with red dirt - a mixture of large rocks and red clay - waited in the parking lot of Twelve Corners Baptist Church until time to dump in the hole.

A pile of gray gravel was dumped in the parking lot for use as well.

Concrete culvert pieces - (reinforced concrete pipe) - eight feet by 48 inches - were laid end to end in the newly-cleaned out trench after the metal culvert was removed. Gasket pieces were laid in the cracks between pieces, then red dirt and gravel were dumped atop the culvert.

Excavator operator Leroy Jackson dug out the dirt with the huge machine.

McCracken estimated the road would be reopened by the end of the day, although probably not in time for after-school traffic.

The road was partially opened at the end of the workday Friday and completely opened Monday morning.

News, Pages 1 on 05/22/2013