Neighbors raise concern about road’s condition in West Pike Run
Parents fear for disabled son\\\'s safety
Residents who live along a West Pike Run Township road are raising alarms over a deteriorating road that they say becomes impassable during rainstorms, and poses significant safety risks.
Elm Road, which is about a mile-and-a-half long, is an unpaved, gravel road that is narrow and twisty, and sees heavy truck traffic from a hydraulic fracturing well pad located along the road.
Brian and Amy Smith, whose house sits across the road from the well pad on Elm Road, have a 9-year-old son, Cash, who was born with a heart defect called coarctation of the aorta and other health issues and uses a wheelchair. They are concerned that the road condition makes it difficult for emergency vehicles and medical personnel to reach their home.
Amy Smith said Cash suffers from daily seizures that have required multiple ambulance trips to the hospital, and he also has been airlifted for medical care.
“We are here with a child who requires a lot of medical attention and whose life is on the line, and this is a critical safety issue. He needs a nurse, but it’s hard to find someone who will come out here in the winter with these road conditions,” said Smith, an accountant for Intermediate Unit I. “The road gets to a point where it’s totally impassable. The last storm we had, I was barely able to make it home in our truck. The road was rushing like a river.”
Smith said a van that transports her son has gotten flat tires from driving on the road.
“You try to get a fire truck or an ambulance on this road; it’s not easy,” she said.
The Smiths’ neighbor, Jack O’Neil, owns a home at 158 Elm, and said the road gets washed away during rainstorms, and the gravel ends up in his yard.
“It’s been a problem for a lot of years, for decades, and it’s getting worse,” said O’Neil. “After every storm, water pours through my property and I’m overrun by red dog. I’ve been fighting this for so many years, it’s to the point now where something has to be done. It’s ridiculous now.”
He said the road is narrow, and “there are places where two cars can’t fit on the road.”
Neighbors have sought help from the township’s board of supervisors to the road degradation and drainage issues.
Minutes dating as far back as January 2015 include requests from O’Neil for the township to address the condition of Elm Road.
Multiple phone calls to members of the township board of supervisors as well as Bentleyville and Richeyville fire departments, which respond to West Pike Run Township fire calls, were not returned.
Officials from the Washington County Conservation District and the state Department of Environmental Protection plan to visit the road on Monday.