MASON COUNTY, WV (WOWK) — Road slips in the Mason County area are not uncommon. However, when the large section of Route 2 slipped out, it had people worried about how long it would take to fix.
“I went over and looked over the edge and I thought, ‘Oh my!’ You know, ‘What a slip!’” says Mavis Weaver of Mason County.
When the initial portion of the road slipped out on July 1st, emergency services closed off the lane.
When more of it slipped away after heavy rains later on in the month, people worried it would extend across the road and close it down completely.
Now, the West Virginia Department of Transportation Division of Highways is stepping in.
“We’re beginning the repair of a slip that occurred earlier in July. From about 7 am till 5 pm, we’ll need to shut the road completely while we stabilize the one lane that still is intact, and then it will take us about six weeks to complete the entire project and have the road opened back up,” says Kathy Rushworth, maintenance engineer for District 1 with the West Virginia Division of Highways.
According to Rushworth, this project is being completed with a specialized contractor—GSI—and supported by district forces.
To fix the slip, they are putting in a ‘soil nail wall.’
“The contractor will show up with a drill rig and they actually will drill back into the hillside and install steel rods that they’ll ground into place and then we’ll build the roadway back up and put a facing on it and we’ll have a stabilized reconstructed slope there,” Rushworth says.
To residents, this is welcome news.
“I think it’s wonderful that they got on it so fast,” Weaver says.
The reconstruction is estimated to cost around $600,000 dollars.
Division of Highways officials say repairing roadway problems—like this road slip—in a timely manner is their goal.
“I’m hoping that within two months of it happening we can get it repaired and we are just trying to get better and get more responsive so that we can make the repairs faster,” Rushworth says.
All in an effort to make sure people can get back to their usual routes as quickly as possible.
Officials say for the next week or so the road will be closed entirely from 7 am to 5 pm, however, they can accommodate emergency vehicles and mail carriers in the meantime.
They say this should serve as a permanent fix.
