Public Works Restarts Asphalt Program After Completing 2007 Rain Damage Repairs

Since the damaging floods of spring and summer 2007, our Public Works’ Road and Bridge Division focused heavily on patching and repairing road damage across the county, delaying a program that was paving over more than 50 miles of rock roads a year with asphalt.

Now, the "50 Miles Per Year Asphalt Program" is restarting, says Public Works Director Jon Kleinheksel. The objective of the program is still to pave every mile of county road within the next 10 years. Since 2005, the program has paved 150 of the 473 miles of rock roads across the county with asphalt before it was temporarily suspended in summer 2007. Still, Public Works should complete this program with all county roads paved by 2013-2014.

But as the program kicks back into high gear, we thought residents should know exactly what our Public Works crews had to deal with since the heavens opened up last year:

2007 storm damage repairs cost more than $1.3 million in labor, equipment and material:

• 11,800 man hours: $265,000
• Equipment: : $254,000
• Materials: $826,000
• Initial Cleanup: 370 tons of debris removed
• 67 Drainage Structures Repaired
• 275 miles of roads re-graded
• 8,700 tons of flex-base replaced over 13.25 miles of road
• 2,500 tons of dirt fill to replace washouts
• 42.1 miles of asphalt road resurfaced with 15,700 tons of asphalt
• Another 275 tons of hot-mixed asphalt concrete (HMAC) to fix potholes and cracks over 35 miles of roadway
• 15,400 tons of HMAC, recycled asphalt and asphalt millings for major surface overlays
• 6.6 miles of subdivision roadways micro-surfaced

After Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) officials reviewed our documentation, the county will be reimbursed by the federal government to the tune of about $590,000. Collin County Judge Keith Self issued a local disaster declaration in early July 2007 as a follow-up to President George W. Bush's federal disaster declaration and Governor Rick Perry's state disaster declaration addressing the extreme rainfall across Texas that in late spring.

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