COMMENTARY: Watch for Falling Rocks Unlike Tenn., N.C., States Not Protecting Us Very Well
By Craig HammondBluefield News Network Writer
About fifteen years ago, a member of the Summers County Board of education was crushed to death by a boulder that was dislodged from a hillside on a state road in the county. Seven years ago giant rocks covered the road from Iaeger to Bradshaw in McDowell County nearly hitting a school bus and blocking traffic for the whole day.
All up and down West Virginia State Route 10 (especially from Matoaka to Logan) there are signs that say "Watch For Falling Rock," in fact, you can find such signage on almost every state road in southern West Virginia. The reason is clear -- painfully clear to many. Rock slides are becoming more and more common because these highways -- cut out of mountains more than a half century ago are the depositories of huge (and I mean huge) boulders that have broken away after decades of wind, rain, ice, and even fire. It's all coming home to roost and state highway officials are very aware of the problem.
Other mountainous states like Tennessee and North Carolina have installed heavy-duty, state-of-the-art chain link fences that can catch and absorb many of these killer rocks before they hit the roadway, notes HNN editor, David M. Kinchen, who points to U.S. 23 northbound out of Asheville, NC, near Mars Hill, where the road to Tennessee is protected by fences that catch the rocks. Kinchen, who has driven extensively in mountainous regions of the Southeast, Southwest and the West Coast, notes that WV Route 20 near the Bluestone Dam to the Lilly Bridge is a particularly dangerous stretch. He told me: It's time for us, in the Mountain State, to start using the technology available to us in selective areas in southern West Virginia to keep the mountains from crashing down on our vehicles. If we don't, we'll just see more car and bodily damage and maybe fatalities."
Millions of dollars are being spent every year to maintain our aging and deteriorating roads and bridges. Billions are needed to bring our state's infrastructure up to where it should be. Last year the voters had rejected the constitutional amendment that would have bonded out our pension debt. Had it passed, hundreds of millions of dollars would be available for needed road maintainence and repair. If Sen.Robert Byrd had focused his billions of "earmarks" on our our state and secondary roads and bridges, instead of prisons, shrines and highways to nowhere, Wild, Wonderful, West Virginia would also be Majestic, Free, and Safe.
More spending on road safety is something we can live with literally.
Craig Hammond is a former mayor of Bluefield and host of Radio Active that airs every weekday morning on WHIS (1440 AM) and WTZE (1470 AM) at 9:06 am.