MORGANTOWN — After being closed for some 500 days following a major slide in April 2018, the lower portion of River Road was reopened on Friday — to the surprise of many.
“I can say that both the county commission and Mayor [Dave] Johnson in Westover knew nothing about this,” Commission President Tom Bloom said. “I got a phone call from someone with the DOH requesting us to open up the road and remove the barriers. The mayor did that on Friday.”
Bloom said that both the county and Westover are interested in restricting the weight of vehicles traveling the slide-prone stretch.
“Are we going to have trucks and buses on it? I don’t know. We’re really surprised and we’re trying to get more information. We have no idea what’s going on,” Bloom said.
The Dominion Post reached out to the DOH on Monday, but did not receive a response.
A major slide on April 17, 2018 forced the evacuation of one home and sent large trees through power lines and left them laying across the road.
In the aftermath, DOH officials said there were as many as 20 active slides within 1.27 miles and that the lower portion of River Road may never reopen due to an estimated cost of $6 million to stabilize the hillside.
As of Monday, it appears as if several sections of the road were hastily resurfaced, leaving rough sections of new asphalt.
Both Bloom and Johnson said that looking at the state the road is in, they question what was actually done to shore up the hillside.
“I don’t know and I’ve actually questioned a couple people as to what they actually did to make it safe, and as far as everything I got, they just cleaned up the mess, cut the grass, moved the blockades and now the road’s open,” Johnson said.
“Anybody can drive on that road, and that’ll help us as far as traffic on DuPont Road coming through Westover. That’s been a pain, but I’d rather deal with that than have to worry about that hillside. They need a weight limit on there. It should have been on there a long time ago.”
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