Struggles abound on roadways

SANDPOINT — If Old Man Winter and Mother Nature have it in for Bonner County’s roads, they are likely high-fiving each other right now.

A wet fall with a cold snap has created a lens of frost that keeps precipitation from migrating into the soil, which have turned the county’s gravel roads into a greasy slurry of mud that can’t be graded until conditions improve.

“What that frost layer represents is a barrier to moisture passage. The only place for it to go is to flow off the sides of the roads,” said Don Hutson, director of Bonner County Road & Bridge.

Trouble spots currently abound.

“We have close to 30 different locations across the county that we’re working on, have fixed or are waiting for emergency level to rise,” Hutson said.

One of the primary concerns on Friday was Sagle Creek Road, part of which washed out when a 4-foot culvert became overwhelmed with runoff.

“It started eroding it out and the flow was such that, eventually, it just picked the who culvert up, tilted it and bent it,” said Hutson.

A 6-foot in diameter, 50-foot long replacement culvert was rolled on Thursday by Contech Engineered Solutions in Airway Heights, Wash., on Thursday.

“Hopefully, they’re already done and it’s on its way up here,” Hutson said.

Meanwhile, a work-around has been employed on Sportsman’s Access Road at the north end of Cocolalla Lake.

The railroad underpass on the route turned out to be the path of less resistance for flood waters.

“It looked like a stream bed versus a road,” said Hutson.

The county secured permission from the Cocolalla Bible Camp to create a temporary point of egress and ingress around the stricken underpass.

In Algoma, flooding is threatening to cut off a residence on Gun Club Road. North of Priest River, precipitation is causing subsidence. The road prism on East River Road is being compromised, near where a stretch of road was damaged in 2015. There was also a slide near Peninsula Road’s intersection with Highway 57.

“That slid out last night,” Hutson said.

Road & Bridge Grader Michael Bryan scrambled to contain the damage.

Back in Sagle, road crews averted disaster by clearing a cross culvert at Talache and Sagle roads.

“That’s been opened up and the flow has been restored. That reduced the threat to that intersection,” Hutson said.

But the National Weather Service’s flood warning continues to arouse concern.

“We think things are going to kind of turn on their ear on Saturday. There’s supposed to be over an inch of rain,” Hutson said.

Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.