INEZ, Ky. — Pavement resurfacing continues today along Ky. Route 40 in Martin County, District 12 of the Ky. Department of Transportation reported.

Milling work began yesterday between the junction of Route 645 and Ky. Route 3, and also from Sheldon Clark High School to the junction of Ky. Route 2032.

Traffic will be reduced to one lane at various times during the day for brief periods.

Beginning Thursday and continuing for about four working days, traffic will be reduced to one lane while resurfacing is under way. The lanes will change frequently. Motorists will need to slow down considerably when  approaching these work zones, pay attention to the signs, and follow instructions of the flaggers.

“We are having more complaints than usual about the inconvenience of road work this summer,” said Sara George, Information Officer for Highway District 12. “People are tired. Tired of the rain, worn out from the floods that came on the heels of winter weather that did extraordinary damage to homes, roads, utility lines. We are all just tired of mess and inconvenience, it seems. Now we have the added irritation of sitting in traffic while crews fix the roads and culverts, breaks and ditchlines. People are not as patient as usual, and we understand their frustration. We just ask for a little understanding. We will work as quickly as safety allows, believe me, because we have hundreds of sites that need to be fixed. We can’t afford to waste time piddling around on one job when there are 25 others ready to go right behind it.”

George said she wanted to thank people in advance for their kindness and for understanding that there is more work to do than there are people and equipment to do it all at once.

“It’s like having more month at the end of the money. We just have to catch up as best we can and still work with safety as our first priority.”

Break repair on Joe’s Creek starts tomorrow

PIKE, Ky. – Maintenance specialists with Highway District 12 will repair an embankment failure on Ky. Route 3227, Joe’s Creek Road, in Pike County tomorrow morning, the Ky. Department of Transportation reported.

According to Joe Stanley, engineering technologist for Pike County, work will start between 8 and 9 o’clock and should take no longer than four to five hours.

“This is the same place where we have drilled before,” Stanley said. “People who live on Joe’s Creek should remember. It’s between two and three miles back from Lower Johns Creek, on that side. People who live closer to US 23 will be able to get in and out as usual, but traffic won’t be able to go all the way through.”

Stanley apologized for the short notice and the inconvenience. “We have several hundred breaks throughout Pike County,” he explained. “When we get through drilling one place, we want to move as quickly as possible to another location so that we don’t waste time or the taxpayers’ money. Sometimes it’s hard to estimate how long it will take at one place. It might be two hours, it could be two days. We don’t always have time to get signs out before the drill starts working.”

Stanley also reminded people that the drilling rig itself takes up more than one lane of space. To set it up takes 30-45 minutes, so it needs to actually drill the railroad steel for at least 30 minutes to make it worthwhile to set it up. “That’s why the delays are so long,” Stanley said. “We know it’s frustrating, but we are asking people to please, please try to be patient. We are working as hard and fast as we can to recover from the damage that this year’s flooding did to our roads and bridges. We will work as fast as we can and still be safe, but people need to bear with us if they can. It’s going to take a while to get to every spot in the county that needs fixing.”