‘We’re up a holler’

BY ROGER SMITH
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN

JOB — When part of the narrow, one-lane road leading to Sarah Bowen’s home collapsed in mid-February, it left her family — and roughly 50 other residents living on the holler — teetering on the edge, both literally and figuratively.

The partial collapse of the steep hillside route has turned daily life into a logistical challenge and a looming safety hazard. What remains of the road is a thin, unstable strip overlooking a deep valley, and locals say the danger grows more dire with each passing week.

“We reached out to the county, and they said someone would come out and talk to us,” said Bowen, who lives with her family at the head of Big Lick in Job. “Well, we haven’t really seen anyone, but they did put some gravel right here,” she added, gesturing toward a patch of gravel near the ditch line — gravel that, by last week, had shifted downhill toward the road’s eroding edge.

“No one’s done anything about the actual break,” she said, motioning toward the crumbling embankment.

Repeated pleas to Martin County officials have yielded little more than vague assurances, according to Bowen. She said that officials stated they were “talking to FEMA and waiting to hear back from FEMA” but that she had yet to see results.

Meanwhile, residents fear the worst.

“It’s a wreck,” said Hester Kirk, another Big Lick resident. “Somebody’s going to get killed, and it could be a kid.”

That concern intensified when the local school bus route resumed after being suspended for a month and a half following the collapse. Kirk and Bowen worry each time the heavy vehicle navigates the fragile path.

“It would be terrible if a bus went over that with a load of kids,” Kirk said. “You see how high it is.”

For families without reliable transportation, the road’s condition has been more than an inconvenience. Bowen, who drove her daughter to school when the bus stopped running, said there were days she did not have the means to transport her child.

Now, as spring storms and rains accelerate the erosion, Bowen says many in the community fear that the road could give way entirely, potentially cutting off access in and out of the holler.

“I think whoever is in office — our elected leaders — needs to be a voice for us, needs to fight for us,” Bowen said. “There might be worse roads than this, but we don’t have an alternate route. We’re up a holler.”

Martin County facilities coordinator Erick Phelps said the county is aware of the breakage on the road and is working to take care of it.

The road department placed material in the slip to try to slow down erosion, according to Phelps, and is working toward a long-term fix. Due to FEMA requirements for reimbursement purposes, the county must obtain a core sample before driving steel to stabilize the embankment.

“If we get rock within 21 feet or less, it’s OK to do a steel-driving repair,” Phelps said. “If we don’t, then we have to do a different type of repair.

“We understand the residents’ concerns,” he added. “And we want to assure them that we will do everything we can to get this repair done as quickly as possible.”