A portion of East Franklin Street in Quitman has been blocked off after a large sinkhole formed in the road at the intersection of East Franklin Street and Brock Avenue.
The city knows the cause of the collapse and is doing everything it can to have the issue and road repaired as soon as possible; however, it will take time. The road will most likely be closed for at least four weeks, possibly more depending on when a contractor is able to come in and fix the problem.
“It was caused by a sewer line collapsing. The sewer line is 18 to 20 feet from the surface and has caused a sinkhole there,” explained Quitman Mayor Chris Reeves. “We’re not sure how long the road is going to be closed. We’re still trying to find a contractor that can get on it. All the contractors have worked lined out for weeks in advance, so we’re trying to find one that can get to it as quickly as possible. We’ve had four contractors look at it, and we’re waiting for them to give us a price and a potential start date. I would say at minimum the road will be closed for four weeks. That’s if we can get someone to start on it next week. We really don’t know the extent of the damage until we get the hole opened up to see what’s actually going on down there. We may have to dig up some of the other roads some to get to good pipe where we can replace what’s busted.”
The issue that caused the collapse has been an issue for years, and they have slowly been trying to correct it throughout the city.
“The city has been lining the sewers for years, and that part of town is the only part that hasn’t been lined,” continued Reeves. “A few weeks ago, we had trucks around that area working on the sewers, and they were doing camera inspections. Running a camera through the sewer to find any problem areas that need to be lined is the first part of the lining project. They’ll push a flexible liner through and then run a UV light through it. It has an epoxy on it, so the UV light hardens the epoxy. It’s basically just like PVC. Once they do that process, the liner smooths out anywhere that there are breaks or issues to make it a solid piece of pipe. The pipe that is in there now is clay and has been there since the 50s or 60s. We were in the process of trying to get that part of town done since it hasn’t been done yet, but we’re just a little bit too late. We’ve had issues with that intersection for 15 years with having little cave-ins in the street, leaks, and stuff. I think over the years they’ve just patched them, and this one isn’t patchable. We’ve had a hard time getting grant money for that area of town because the income level is a little higher in those parts of town. A lot of our grant money is focused on low income areas.”
They intend to fix another area at the same time to try and prevent the same issue from happening there in the future.
“There’s another over on Anderson Street,” added Reeves. “It’s not as bad, but the street is collapsing there too. Of course, that isn’t as much of a high traffic area, but we’re going to fix that as well.”
Until the road is fixed, people will have to continue to take a detour through the neighborhood to get around the hole. The city is sorry for the inconvenience, but that is the only option at this time. If possible, commercial trucks are asked to take another road to reach their destination.
“We hate that traffic is having to detour through the neighborhood, but there really is no other option,” expressed Reeves. “We’re trying to keep the commercial trucks out to at least keep them off the neighborhood streets. I’m concerned about the street surface since it’s not made for heavy traffic loads like the highway is. I’m concerned about that street being damaged and the inconvenience for the neighborhood there. We do have officers patrolling more over there to make sure people are stopping at stop signs and not driving too fast.”
For now, everyone will need to be patient as the city locates a contractor to come in and fix the problem.
