City’s work crews stuck in the mud

Wayne Boyd is looking for some relief, but it may not come until the rain stops.

Boyd lives east of Enid and said a nearby area of 54th becomes a mud pit whenever it rains. The area is just off Breckinridge Road, where dirt was brought in once to fill a low spot. That dirt becomes a hazardous area for drivers when it rains, and vehicles constantly are getting stuck. Boyd’s wife was stuck Thursday morning.

“We need to put some sand and gravel in it. They took out a bridge down the road and used the dirt down where it’s low. When it rains it turns to soup a foot deep,” Boyd said. “When you go through it you get stuck. It’s unreal.”

Boyd said the area is a foot deep and 75 yards long and is impassable most of the time. He wants the city to do something about it.

Public Services Director Jim McClain agreed the spot is in the city limits, but he said nothing can be done to it — and other trouble spots around town — until it stops raining.

“We have some areas that are low. We haven’t been able to get out because of the rain,” he said. “As a result, it turns to a bottomless pit. As soon as it dries we can start adding material to these places. County commissioners all over the country are having similar problems.

“The rural roads are a disaster. We have two graders dedicated to that all the time. As soon as it dries up they are in there, but we need it to dry up enough to put material in,” he said.

McClain said roads need to dry at least three days before they can be graded and seven to 10 days before road material can be added.

Street problems are only part of the city’s weather woes. Most of the activities the city is usually doing this time of year can’t be done. The biggest problem in the city now is a lack of mowing.

“We can’t mow when it’s too wet and boggy, that’s the No. 1 thing this time of year,” McClain said.

City crews also cannot complete concrete work that is ongoing, which means repairs to streets can’t be done. Also, there are special projects, including bridge work, that are at a standstill until the rain stops.

“It affects any projects going on. Mowing is not restricted to the parks but the roadsides, also,” he said.

City crews are repairing a bridge on Southgate, he said, and the rain has not allowed them to finish. In fact, nearly all outside city activities have been halted, except cleanup. City crews still can collect items from curbsides in the targeted cleanup area, and available people from other jobs are being put to work doing that. The current targeted cleanup area is Van Buren west to Cleveland and Garriott north to Willow.

The Enid sewer plant is inundated with water coming into the system because of the high water table, McClain said.

The sewer plant currently is receiving about 2 million gallons a day more than usual, he said.

“We will have a mess to clean up after it quits raining,” he said. “We will clean it up when it stops raining.”