Sections of four of Bulloch County’s county-maintained roads remained closed as of Friday, Sept. 8, as a result of the more than eight inches of rain that Hurricane Idalia dumped on the area Aug. 30.

One of those, a paved road where flood waters undermined the pavement, washed away several feet of the road’s shoulder and damaged drainage pipes, will require a contractor-bid restoration. Meanwhile, even some dirt roads currently reopened after temporary fixes by county crews will require permanent repairs later, said Assistant Public Works Director Robert Seamans.

He and other Bulloch County Public Works Department employees drove two representatives from FEMA and one from GEMA around on Wednesday, Sept. 6, to see portions of the county’s roads that experienced lasting damage.

“We went to several sites around the county, some that are still closed, some that we were in the process of doing temporary repairs to get them passable,” Seamans said Friday. “It was a real good meeting. We passed a lot of information on to them, and hopefully we’ll be hearing something from them before too long.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, administers disaster relief and recovery funding whose ultimate source is American taxpayers, while Georgia’s corresponding state agency, GEMA, will serve as the conduit for the county’s reports to FEMA and ultimately for reimbursement of costs, expected to be 75% federal money.

That will require a wider disaster declaration than the one President Joe Biden has issued so far, covering just three Georgia counties far south of Bulloch.

Bulloch County officials did not receive any promises or estimates of funding from the state and federal employees. But Bulloch Public Safety and EMA Director Ted Wynn said the county’s preliminary estimates of its cleanup and road repair costs, totaling in the $4 million to $5 million range, were shared with FEMA and GEMA.

“I would say, once it’s all said and done, it will probably be somewhere in between there,” Wynn said. “But there again, we don’t know what they may ask us to cut out or what they may leave in. We estimated on the private contractor’s work, so that could change, that could go down or that could go up.”

Seamans and county Public Works and Transportation Director Dink Butler supplied the cost estimates for road repairs and cleanup, Wynn said. The estimated total far exceeds Bulloch County’s threshold to qualify for FEMA public assistance in a declared disaster, which Wynn cited as $360,080. That’s Bulloch County’s 2020 census population of 81,099 multiplied by $4.44.

Still-closed roads

The four road segments still closed Friday varied from one expected to take months to repair to others that may reopen next week.

Brannen Pond Road, between U.S. Highway 80 and Brooklet-Denmark Road, was the one paved road on the still-closed list. This is the road where an Aug. 31 photograph showed a guardrail in the process of being washed down the embankment. The flooding undermined the pavement and washed away six to eight feet of shoulder, Seamans said. County road crews will not attempt to fix this kind of damage, so it will require bids from contractors.

“That’s going to be an expensive repair,” he said. “It’s going to be months get that back open.”

A segment perhaps 300 yards long was damaged, he said, but the closure to the nearest crossroads took at least a mile of the road out of use.

The other roads on the list are dirt roads. But the county has equipment to fix dirt roads and personnel with experience working on them, since Bulloch contains more than 700 miles of unpaved roadways.

Railroad Bed Road, in the section from Highway 80 toward Arcola Road, was expected to remain closed at least a few more days. Drainage pipes there were completely washed out.

“That one’s going to be extensive, but we’re hoping to have it open within a week or so,” Seamans said.

Interviewed Friday before 2 p.m., he said the road crew working in that area hoped “if everything goes right” to have one section or Railroad Bed Road, between Railroad Bed Connector and Arcola Road, open before the day was out. When accomplished, that would open access for the county’s dump trucks, bulldozer and motor graders to fix the next road on the list.

Robertson Road, running from Railroad Bed Road back to Highway 80, is another damaged dirt road in the same area. “It’s repairable. We’ve just got to be able to get there from Railroad Bed Road,” he said.

Moore Chavers Road, intersecting Two Chop Road and Middle Ground Road northeast of Hopeulikit, was also closed, at least in part, on Friday.  County Public Works personnel hope to have it “passable in the next couple of weeks,” Seamans said.

Recently reopened

A section of Two Chop Road was reopened earlier this week. “We’ve still got some repairs to do, but it is passable,” he said.  Sinkhole Road had also reopened earlier in the week.

Seamans reiterated the county’s plea to motorists to slow down on open but still damaged roads and not drive around “road closed” signs or barriers.

“These are there for a reason, and it is serious where they are closed,” he said. “Please be careful. We’ve made temporary repairs on some of these roads to get them passable and we’re going to continue to maintain them, but we are going to have to go back on some of them and do much more reconstruction work to get them back like they were before.”

FEMA assessment

County employees are documenting the work, from the initial clearing of fallen trees and limbs to the further repairs, toward the claim for FEMA reimbursement.

FEMA typically covers 75% of the cost, with the other 25% considered the local share except for any amount the state decides to cover, Wynn said. After some past storms, the state put in 15%, leaving only 10% local cost, he noted.

Gov. Brian Kemp on Wednesday, Sept. 6, submitted a formal request for a Major Disaster Declaration to FEMA and President Joe Biden. Bulloch was one of the 30 counties listed in Kemp’s request for public assistance, and he requested that the entire state be approved for the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. Late Thursday, Biden issued a disaster declaration that applied to only three Georgia counties: Cook, Glynn and Lowndes.

“Damage assessments are continuing in other areas, and more counties and additional forms of assistance may be designated after the assessments are fully completed,” stated the Sept. 7 press release at www.whitehouse.gov.