The crossing on Ritters Mill Road. Photo courtesy of Barren County
By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
After serval months, and numerous conversations between the county and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the crossing on Ritters Mill Road is back open.
Ritters Mill Road is south of Glasgow — near Temple Hill — and connects Ky. 63 with Temple Hill Road. At one point the road crosses over a creek, and that section has been repeatedly damaged due to high waters and storms; most recently the low-water ford was damaged by the severe weather earlier this year.
Barren County Emergency Management Director Garland Gilliam said the now-opened crossing featured six additional box culverts, wing walls, and underground concrete that will hopefully allow for better waterflow.
“As part of the repairs, we’ve built more box culverts, so what we’ve ended up doing is adding three more on [one] side and three more on [the other] that are 12 foot wide,” Gilliam said. “So we’ve added 72 feet of bridge…and we made the creek wider to make more water flow through it. Then we added the wing walls so water will hopefully hit that and bounce into the holes instead of running underneath the road.”
Repairs to the crossing was funded, in part, through FEMA and one of the reasons it has taken so long is because Gilliam was trying to get mitigation funds from the federal agency, he said. Mitigation funds are used to build things back better than they were before the disaster.
“FEMA is all about fixing it back how it was…, but if we fix it like it was before then the next rain it’ll wash out again, Gilliam said.
Gilliam said the agency has approved to reimburse the county for part of the mitigation project.
“They have approved the project and are waiting to send the money to Frankfort,” Gilliam said. “So it’s been approved but the money has not been sent yet. The money goes to Frankfort and then filters down to Barren County.”
The crossing opened on Monday, Oct. 27.
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