Its new drainage structures in place and pavement and guardrail restored, Brannen Pond Road reopened the first week of December, 15 months after it was damaged by rushing water dumped by Hurricane Idalia at the end of August 2023. FEMA covered the largest portion of the $760,000 cost.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Debby, passing through Aug. 6-7, 2024, and an unnamed night-and-day downpour Nov. 6-7 each dropped about a foot more water onto the area, causing widespread new damage. (Between those came Hurricane Helene, but its wind damage, followed by contracted debris removal, is a separate issue.)

Since the August and November rains, the Bulloch County Public Works crews have restored many dirt roads.

Now the county’s Engineering Department is planning toward restoration projects on still closed portions of a few paved roads, especially Nevils-Denmark Road and G.W. Oliver Road. Engineers are also planning to address drainage structure issues on some dirt roads, such as Dekle Road, and less visible ones on at least one paved road that has remained open, namely Country Club Road.

Seeking disaster repair and mitigation money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, and Georgia’s state counterpart, GEMA, will again be a goal of the county planning, for obvious reasons, notes Bulloch County Engineer Brad Deal. Of that approximate $760,000 total engineering, design and construction cost for the Brannen Pond Road restoration and upgrade, FEMA supplied $509,200 and GEMA nearly $62,569, for a total of $571,769 in federal and state funding, he reports.

“So that leaves the remaining approximate $190,000 to be covered by T-SPLOST,” Deal said.

The Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax is the county’s main local funding source for all types of transportation projects. So recovering as much of the storm damage repair costs as possible from FEMA will leave more of the T-SPLOST money for regular projects such as paving dirt roads.

Thanks to 2024’s rough late summer to autumn weather, the Brannen Pond Road restoration was already put to an unexpected test.

“We had that unnamed storm … that heavy rain event (Nov. 6-7). We did have the box culvert in place when that occurred, and the water did not come over the road, although it did come over the road in a lot of other locations around the county,” Deal said. “We got a load of damage from that storm, but no issues there.”

An exact final cost figure would be available later, he said. The $760,000 remains an estimate while some minor components, such as grassing the right of way and embankment, have yet to be completed and bills received.

But Brannen Pond Road has been back in use since Dec. 6, again serving many drivers as a shortcut between U.S. Highway 80 east of Brooklet and the Southeast Bulloch schools area on Brooklet-Denmark Road

‘Built back better’

The project involved a hazard mitigation approach to make the section of road along the pond, which drains a substantial watershed around Brooklet, less likely to wash out in the future.

In December 2023, the county commissioners awarded Kimley-Horn and Associates, a Savannah-based consulting firm, the engineering contract with fees not-to-exceed $158,000. Kimley-Horn conducted a water-flow study and delivered recommendations in May. The chosen design involved the installation of a double-barrel box culvert, each “barrel” or channel measuring 10 feet by 7 feet and extending a length of 52 feet underneath the road.

McLendon Enterprises was awarded the construction contract in late July, initially on a $547,801 bid. But the work was underway when Tropical Storm Debby hit, and the county gave McLendon a change-order increase to fix some additional erosion that occurred then.

However, the actual cost of the change-order work turned out to be lower than its $115,720 “not to exceed” limit, with less material required. So the overall project cost, which would have exceeded $800,000 at the maximum amount of the change order, remains significantly less, Deal said.

Ahead of schedule

Still, McLendon received the county’s notice to proceed Sept. 4, Deal said, with a deadline to open the road to traffic by Jan. 2, 2025.

“So they were roughly a month ahead of schedule,” he said.

Next, restoring Nevils-Denmark Road will be a similar project. Tropical Storm Debby overwhelmed a 73-year-old, double-barrel box culvert along a creek, not far from Nevils Elementary School, leaving a gap in the road with the pavement and substrate missing.

“It’s kind of a similar situation to Brannen Pond Road, but we shortened up the process a little bit by not going through all the procurement (procedure) for the engineering services that we went through for Brannen Pond Road,” Deal said. “Since we had Kimley-Horn working on Brannen Pond Road and this was very similar, we went into negotiations with them immediately.”

In September, the county commissioners unanimously approved spending up to $192,500 with Kimley-Horn and a subcontractor for engineering and design work in preparation for the Nevils-Denmark Road repair.

“You had an existing box culvert, and it got undermined and it sunk about a foot on one end and rotated and cracked, so we’re going to have to do a full replacement,” Deal said.

Kimley Horn’s hydrology analysis is nearly done and suggests that the county should increase the size of the culvert structure there “to get it to a level that we think will avoid frequent damage to the road during future storms,” he said.

The new structure will probably be a triple box culvert of size yet to be determined.

An early estimate suggests that the construction cost for the Nevils-Denmark restoration will be a little higher than for the one on Brannen Pond Road.

 “We expect the final plans to be done March 31, so we would anticipate getting it to construction during the summer of 2025. …,” Deal said. “We moved into the design quicker on Nevils-Denmark than on Brannen Pond, so we think the schedule should be a little faster.”

G.W. Oliver Road

The county Engineering Department has yet to call for design contract offers for restoration of G.W.  Oliver Road, but that will be the next priority, he said. It is a paved road connecting Golf Club Road and Sinkhole Road, in a mainly residential area.

Damaged during Tropical Storm Debby, G.W.  Oliver Road received some county repairs and was reopened, only to be damaged again because of the Nov. 6-7 downpour.

“Since it’s a continuing issue, we’re looking at maybe some more substantial improvements to it,” Deal said.

The trouble spot is a 72-inch diameter pipe that carries a large amount of drainage, flowing out of the Statesboro city limits, under the roadway. With some pavement washed away, the road remains closed to traffic in the affected area for now.

Detours are available for residents via Golf Club Road and Burkhalter Road.

Other roads

Yet another paved road that has damage to a drainage structure is Country Club Road near Saddle Creek subdivision, but that road remains open.

“It has … I think it’s three 48-inch pipes, and it was damaged during Debby and the November storm as well,” Deal said. “We’ve been able to stabilize it to where we haven’t had to close the road yet for any reason. We’re just monitoring  it  right at this point, but we’re planning to do some improvements to it so that it  can handle  any future storms.”

One dirt road where the engineers are involved in planning for repairs is Dekle Road, a portion of which remains closed.

“A  pond dam broke there during the November rain event,” said  Deal. “We  had repaired it after Debby as well and got it back open to traffic, then it was damaged again.”

Seeking FEMA reimbursement for  all of these projects, county staff members have met with representatives of the federal agency a couple of times already and expect a FEMA site visit in early 2025.