Heavy rains in April caused mudslides that forced the temporary closure of parts of KY 404 and KY 194 in Floyd County.

Kentucky Transportation Cabinet District 12 Press Release:

FLOYD COUNTY--Monday, May 2, 2005--Two slides and pavement settlement blocked the 404 Hill near the Magoffin County line early Saturday morning.

Bud Akers, Superintendent of the Allen Maintenance Garage, Highway District 12, said the pavement between mile points zero and one had dropped about two feet from the road bed. The damage extends about three-fourths of the width of the road. "On Saturday we hauled in some milling material and used a grader to make temporary repairs," Akers said. "This morning (Monday) we started building a retaining wall to interrupt the slide and stabilize the road bed as a permanent repair."

Portable traffic signals were installed on Saturday, allowing one lane of traffic at a time to go through the site. "So much of the road is damaged," Akers said, "that even with one lane at a time we are still only allowing small vehicles to go through." While the contractors and state maintenance workers are on site making these repairs, the road will be closed to all traffic. "On the average, this is from about 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. and we hope to have it finished by the end of this week, four or five days."

On the other side of Floyd County, near the Pike County line, KY 194 near the German Bridge remains closed. In addition to one fairly large slide, at least three different sites along the highway were covered with water early Saturday morning. State highway workers cleared the slide, but as of Monday morning, the water had not receded and the road was still closed.

"We will remove the High Water signs as soon as it is safe for people to travel the road," Akers said. "When you can't see through the water to what is under it, you don't need to be driving through it. If a cross drain has collapsed or a culvert has washed out, for example, and the space has filled with water, you could think you will be driving on pavement and all of a sudden the pavement isn't there. Driving through high water is just too dangerous to take a chance. We want to urge everyone to be extremely careful and use good, sound judgment and common sense."

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