Wednesday night’s storm forced the Warren County Highway Department into action as several trees fell across roads and had to be removed.
“We’re on call 24-7 when trees blow over and my employees are happy to come in and clear the roads,” said Road Superintendent Levie Glenn. “It wasn’t too bad this time. Fortunately, they weren’t very big trees.”
When the storm began to roll in Wednesday night around 8 p.m., 911 dispatch began receiving calls of downed trees. Highway department employees removed trees that were across Hutchins Road and Bybee Branch Road on Wednesday night.
Thursday morning, crews worked on trees across Pigeon Hill Road and Kay Prater Road, according to Glenn.
“It just takes a saw and one or two men to open up a road,” said Glenn. “If it’s at night, our goal is to get the tree cleared and open up the road. Then the next day we go back and clean up all the brush, chip it up, and make it look good.”
As for other work, Glenn said the highway department is currently in the middle of a $1 million project to replace the bridge on Swan Mill Road. When that is complete, the next project will be a bridge on Old Shelbyville Road near the county line.
Glenn says the highway department maintains about 100 bridges on county roads. The bridges must pass TDOT inspection.