BY ROGER SMITH
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN
TOMAHAWK — Residents at the head of Rockhouse Fork in Tomahawk are dealing with flooding of their homes, property and the county road due to failing drainage culverts.
Johnny and Sofie Marcum’s home gets flooded during heavy rain since Martin County Road and Bridge took their bridge away and installed culverts at the creek crossing. Upstream, around the curve, Steven Bowen’s property and the county road are being damaged by flooding caused by a failing culvert under the roadway.
“We’re getting flooded out of the house,” the Marcums’ son David Marcum said.
The culvert consists of two corrugated pipes and no wing walls. David Marcum says the Martin County Road and Bridge Department installed the crossing after floodwaters wrenched his father’s bridge off its foundation a few years ago.
“They said they would put a concrete bridge in here after they took our bridge,” he said. “They said, ‘We’ll put this in here temporarily until we get other people’s driveways fixed.’”
Initially, the county installed one “big drain and two small drains.”
“They said that was temporary,” said David Marcum. “Then they took that out and put these two in.”
With no wing walls on the culverts, the backfill material has unraveled, as has the path over the pipes, leaving the tops exposed, cracked, and difficult to travel across. The culverts have filled with silt and rock, diminishing the flow of the creek. Embankments on both sides of the stream have deteriorated
“You can see one of the drain pipes is already busted,” said Marcum. “My 4-wheel drive doesn’t want to come across it. And it was worse than this until I got in the creek, threw the rocks up there myself, and got creek sand and put on it.”
Marcum says the county keeps putting gravel on the crossing.
“And when it floods, it fills the creek up,” he said. “We’re getting flooded, and they won’t come up here and dip the rocks out of the creek. Dad has gone through four carpets and a lot of furniture.”
Marcum says he has reached out to “everybody” for help.
“I’ve thought about calling Frankfort,” he said.
Johnny Marcum says he signed an easement when “Callaham” was the judge/executive and that some of his neighbors got concrete bridges at that time.
“We’re overlooked,” Johnny Marcum said.
District 3 Magistrate Derrick Stepp said Monday that the culvert installation “was not a good fix.”
“All of these people are friends of mine,” Stepp said. “I’ve always considered them good friends, and I would love to be able to help them.”
Martin County Judge/Executive Colby Kirk visited the Marcums recently.
“That must have been done sometime before I moved back home,” Kirk told the Mountain Citizen. “It looks like the water is getting over the top of those drains and potentially compromising the county road. So it’s something we will have our road foreman take a look at and come up with a plan to fix.”
At neighbor Steven Bowen’s place, the roadway and surrounding properties are being damaged by a culvert under Rockhouse Fork Road.
During heavy rainfall, water coming out of Stump Branch floods the road, eroding the asphalt, roadbed and adjacent areas.
“It’s washing my land out,” Bowen said.
According to Bowen, the issue began in 2020 when the county was working to remove an object stuck inside the 24-inch pipe and bent one end of it.
“They said they would come and change it out, and it’s nonsense that they haven’t,” said Bowen. “They kept saying they would bring a 3-foot or 4-foot pipe and put it in here, but we haven’t seen them.”
Bowen lets the school bus use a portion of his property to turn around, but the flooding keeps washing away gravel that the county brings for the turnaround.
“I try to be nice to people,” he said. “I let them turn here.”
Magistrate Stepp is familiar with the issue, and it is on his district worklist.
“The drain is too small to carry the flow of water out of that hollow,” said Stepp. “A tire got stuck in it, and the homeowner and I pulled it out together.
“It is actually on my work list to have that drain replaced,” he added. “It’s on a couple of my worklists, but they haven’t gotten to it yet. Hopefully, they will see the urgency.”
Judge Kirk said the drain under the county road would have to be fixed.
“That’s something we can address,” Kirk said. “I’ll have our road foreman go up and see what we need to do to – if it’s to replace the pipe or fix the pipe that’s in place.”