x
Breaking News
More () »

Spanker Creek Bridge In Benton County Getting Close To Completion

BENTON COUNTY, Ark. (KFSM) — Flooding from this week’s heavy rain closed several roads to close, but the county said they are now all back open. On ...

BENTON COUNTY, Ark. (KFSM) -- Flooding from this week's heavy rain closed several roads to close, but the county said they are now all back open.

On the old spanker creek bridge, water would come up from under the bridge onto the road forcing the county to shut down the road anytime we got a lot of rain.

“It would come on over on the banks behind me and flood that whole area behind me. It never quite got over the road to come onto our property, but it would fill up that area over there,” Denny Deischer said.

Denny Deischer has lived on spanker creek road for 6 years and is excited to not have to worry about the potential for flooding anymore.

“Since they`ve had this detour, it`s caused a lot of traffic to detour around and come back this way, and it slowed everything down. When they get it done, it`s just going to flow everything much better,” he said.

This new bridge is 100 feet long which is double the length of the old one. The county said by elevating the bridge more water will be able to flow when we get heavy rain.

“It worked very very well because we did raise the bridge to a new height and that was a huge part of why it did flood in previous years because it was just so low and the water was able to cover it,” Channing Barker said.

Benton County Communications Director Channing Barker said other than replacing spanker creek bridge the county has been doing a lot of hazard mitigation improvements to keep them from having to close as many roads.

“Also, we've been installing culverts and other drainages that help the water flow out much quicker than it usually would have. And so when you look at how many closures we did have compared to what we have in the past, it`s down quite a bit because of the fixes we have done,” she said.

The bridge is still on track to have it open to drivers by the end of the month.

Before You Leave, Check This Out