Drought silver lining: Roads are passable
If there’s a silver lining to a drought, in Ozark County many low-water crossings that are typically underwater due to swollen lakes are crossable this year.
Ozark County Commissioners said the only low-water crossing that’s still closed is Haskins Ford on County Road 863 where the Little North Fork of the White River meets Bull Shoals Lake.
Western District Commissioner Layne Nance said he is “hopeful” that Haskins Ford will be crossable in a couple weeks.
Presiding County Commissioner John Turner said the area known as “Steel Tracks” on County Road 861 was recently re-opened after having been underwater and impassible for several weeks.
“It wasn’t really damaged too badly,” Turner said, “We just had to do some tidying up.”
The Steel Tracks area on County Road 861 has seen substantial flooding and washout damage over the past few years due to higher lake levels.
“Bull Shoals had been dropping about half a foot a day there for a long time during the drought,” Nance said. He said it has slowed down and is now dropping about four inches a day. “Who knows if it will keep dropping or not?” Nance said.
The lake level at Bull Shoals was 670.57 feet above sea level on Monday afternoon, with total turbine water release at 20,423 cubic feet per second, which is typical for this time of year.
Over on Norfork Lake, the lake level was 561.69 on Monday, and the lake is dropping at a much lower rate (currently just under 2 inches per day) and a much smaller turbine water release at 2,930 CFS.
Smokey Road (County Road 555) is the only county road that’s regularly impacted by higher Norfork Lake levels.
Eastern District County Commissioner Gary Collins said Smokey Road has been open for a few weeks, and Collins said the dry spell has also allowed his crews to finish a new slab project on County Road 164.
“We’re happy it’s done,” Collins said. “It’s so much better than it was before, we replaced the old metal tiles with heavy duty plastic so they won’t rust.”
Collins said County Road 164 was closed for a couple weeks while the new slab was being built.
In all, Collins said, the project took about 50 yards of concrete and the total cost was between $7,000 and $9,000.