When Charlie Sanders left his home on Plymouth Road Saturday morning, he thought he’d be back that night.
Extensive flooding from Moore’s Creek that created a 10-foot-long road washout derailed that plan.
The hole goes all the way across the road except for a thin strip of grass and dirt on one side, wide enough for one person to walk on at a time.
Sanders found that he couldn’t get around, or through, the five-foot-deep hole full almost to overflowing with rushing muddy water, blocking the dead-end road. Sanders turned around and drove to Caledonia to stay with family until Tuesday, when he returned with friends and all-terrain vehicles to ride around the hole.
They went to all 12 homes on the road, checking on stranded neighbors.
Everyone was OK, Sanders said, but most of them expressed surprise and disappointment that the road is impassable, and that no one from the city had notified them.
“We had to find that out ourselves,” one resident told Sanders. “No one from the city called. No one from the city checked on us.”
As flood waters recede from their 166.6-foot crest — the highest the waters have been since 1991 — the hole continues to widen. As of Wednesday morning, videos on Facebook show the soil beneath the road has also worn away, exposing a large drainage pipe and more than doubling the width of the hole.
The city of Columbus is responsible for Plymouth Road. Public Works Director Casey Bush did not respond to calls from The Dispatch by press time.
Public Works employees can’t begin repairs until the water recedes, something that frustrated the two employees sent to assess the damage Tuesday afternoon.
“I could fix this,” said one, gesturing to the swirling water. “I know what to do. I just wish the city would let us do it. But that’s not my call.”
Plymouth Road resident Kelley Perrigin, who started recording the evolution of the hole on her Facebook page Sunday morning, said she plans to get rides to and from her job in downtown Columbus until the road is repaired. She couldn’t leave her home at all on Monday, and friends who pick her up have to meet her at the end of Plymouth Road since it’s been barricaded by the city. All told, she has to walk about a mile one way.
She doesn’t mind the walk or the flooding. She lived on this same street during “The Great Flood in 1971” — when flood waters reached almost 180 feet — so comparatively, this isn’t so bad, she said. However, she’s worried about the possibility of vehicles unable to get past the hole should there be an emergency.
“There are some older people on this road,” she said. “What if somebody had a heart attack or other emergency? How do you handle that?”
She hopes repair crews come out to fix the hole sooner rather than later, but worries the city is more focused on the damage wrought by the EF-3 tornado that ripped through northeast Columbus Saturday.
“I think with the tornado, the flooding got pushed aside,” she said.
Until the water recedes and the road is repaired, residents like Jerry Wayne Beard are prepared to keep doing what they’ve been doing the past few days: parking their cars on one side of the hole and walking across to the other side.
Beard, who owns All Star Fence in Columbus, said he and his wife were out of town during the tornado. When they came back on Sunday, they realized their car could only make it as far as the hole. They carefully crossed the ditch, and only ventured out again Tuesday morning after the water had receded.
“I’ve lived out here on and off since 1968, and we’ve seen worse,” Beard said. “It’s a little bit of inconvenience but we feel blessed that it wasn’t worse.”
Beard, like his neighbors, would like to see the city fix the hole sooner rather than later. However, he knows it’s not top priority at this moment.
“Of course we want it fixed,” he said. “But we know the city has its hands full, so we’re OK for now.”
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