PEEBLES, Ohio — A rural, heavily wooded neighborhood near Peebles was cut off after severe flooding on Sunday submerged its only bridge, stranding residents who could not get in or out until Monday morning.
Frustrated residents said they have asked Adams County officials to replace the low-water bridge over Scioto Brush Creek for 30 years. The bridge is the only way to reach the homes of 15 to 20 residents, who live on Coffee Hollow and Saylor roads bordering the Brush Creek State Forest in Franklin Township.
“Basically, it floods anywhere from five to 20 times a year,” said Julia Reno, who lives up the hill from the bridge. “We usually don’t find out that it’s flooded until we try to get out in the morning.”
On Sunday, Jim Daniel said his wife was in town helping their son, who has special needs, and when she tried to get home, the bridge was flooded, so she had to drive back to town to get a place to rest.
“Really frustrating as well as dangerous,” Daniel wrote in a text message to the WCPO 9 I-Team on Monday.
When there is rain in the forecast, Reno said she packs an overnight bag to spend the night with a friend after work in case she can’t get home.
WATCH: WCPO's I-Team talked to residents affected by the flooding
“Because there have been times when I’ve sat out there on the other side of the bridge until 5 or 6 o’clock in the morning waiting for it to get down low enough that I can drive my car through the water,” Reno said.
It’s not just an inconvenience.
During a flood years ago, an ambulance could not reach a resident who suffered a heart attack because the bridge was underwater. His son was forced to drive through floodwaters to get him and transport him to the hospital, Reno said.
“The delay in treatment caused severe and permanent heart damage that ultimately contributed to his early death,” Reno said. “During another flooding event, storms knocked down trees and power lines. Utility crews could not cross the flooded bridge to restore power, leaving one resident who depends on a breathing machine relying solely on a backup generator.”
When Daniel had a heart attack years ago, it was raining, but he was still able to drive himself across the bridge to the hospital, he said.
“But a little bit more water and I wouldn’t have got out of here,” Daniel said.
The low bridge is a log jam for large tree limbs and branches carried by the fast-moving creek when it floods.
“I carry chainsaws with me wherever I go because when the water goes down, you still can’t get out because of all the logs," Daniel said. "There’s been wood stacked on that side of the bridge 10 feet tall, above the deck, and then it washes over the deck.”
Robert Shattuck, who has lived off Coffee Hollow Road for 30 years, has spent many nights sleeping in his car because he couldn’t cross the flooded bridge to get home.
“We’ve been promised (a new bridge) so many times in 30 years that you give up believing anybody,” Shattuck said. “They keep saying 'there’s not enough people back here.'That was their attitude. This is a dead end … it runs into the state forest, they couldn’t care less.”
The WCPO 9 I-Team brought these concerns to Adams County Engineer Lee Pertuset on May 21 and asked him why the bridge hasn’t been replaced yet.
“It is a very difficult bridge for us to deal with. Structurally, it’s sound, and so that disqualifies it from us receiving grant money for it,” Pertuset said. “So, anything that we do has to be our own funds, which are limited for the most part.”
His office oversees 254 bridges in Adams County, “and we always have bridges that are in need of replacement, that are structurally deficient or potentially failing.”
"It’s a very difficult bridge for us because 98 percent of the time it is an adequate structure for people to cross, maybe more like 99 percent of the time,” Pertuset said. “Not only that, but the project itself is difficult. It is a township road, so we’re dealing with less right-of-way than on a county road. So, to obtain right of way, we had to do a survey … and then we had to submit it to the landowner, which is a worldwide global corporation.”
After hearing complaints a few years ago, Pertuset said his office decided to set aside the $200,000 for a new bridge at Coffee Hollow Road.
But those plans got derailed when a different bridge, off Brown Hill Road near Manchester, got overloaded and failed last summer, and had to be replaced immediately.
“That took our attention, and that was last summer,” Pertuset said. “In that process, we tabled the Coffee Hollow project at that time.”
The engineer’s office resumed the Coffee Hollow Bridge project this spring and submitted a right-of-way sheet for the landowner to review, but had not heard back as of last week, Pertuset said.
“The construction part of the bridge is very difficult as well, simply because we can’t just close the bridge,” Pertuset said. “We have to build a bridge beside this bridge … then build the road to it, then build the road away from it, and then match up the road on one end and the road on the other.”
Pertuset hoped that construction on a new bridge could start at the end of the summer.
He estimated it would take six months to build a new bridge 8 feet higher than the current one. Once finished, the original bridge will be removed.
WCPO asked if Pertuset had a message for frustrated residents.
“Hang in there just a little longer. I am committed to this project, and I have said that to them. I understand their frustration,” Pertuset said. “I don’t anticipate any more delays. I will do my best to make it happen this year.”
