BY ROGER SMITH
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN

TOMAHAWK — Venida Spence has lived on Rockhouse Fork for 50 years. Her only access to her home is a dilapidated wooden bridge that has become too unsafe for automobiles to cross, so she hopes Martin County Judge/Executive Colby Kirk will help her.

Spence, who has lived alone since her husband died in 2005, says the county had an easement on her bridge when it was built 50 years ago.

Her boyfriend drives across the bridge to take her to the grocery and medical appointments, but she says no one else is brave enough to risk the bridge.

Health problems prevent Spence from being able to walk across the bridge to get her mail.

“My legs won’t let me,” Spence said. “And I’ve had open-heart surgery and am a diabetic.”

Spence has reached out to District 3 Magistrate Derrick Stepp.

“He said he would look for boards, and I could get somebody to put them on,” said Spence.

Stepp said Monday that the county could not work on a private bridge.

“All I can do is try to find some boards that I could give her,” said Stepp. “I know a lot of work like this was done in the past by former judges and magistrates, but we’re restricted on what we can do now. Every county road has a CR number. The head of Rockhouse Road has a CR number, but no branch off Rockhouse has a CR number. Unless a road has a CR, there is nothing the county can legally do.”

Spence recalls a frightening incident on the bridge.

“Before that first board broke there in the middle, I was in my car and got out to check the mail,” she said. “That board went down, and I grabbed the top of my car. I was going over the top of my car; it was throwing me over my car. That one piece on the end goes sideways, and one end is completely caved in. The bricks under it are gone.”

Spence says that some of her neighbors got concrete bridges during a former administration, and she reached out to Judge Kirk.

“I want to go across the bridge,” said Spence.

Kirk said he visited Spence recently while he was out campaigning.

“Unfortunately, according to the records that I can find, her bridge is a private bridge,” Kirk said Monday. “It’s not listed in the county’s road plan, so I can’t send the county road crews out there to work on it.”

“I did let her know that if we replace wooden bridges in the county in the future and have surplus wooden boards, I would let her know about it,” added Kirk. “It’s possible that instead of us having to throw them away, the surplus could be made available to her, and she could have someone put them on. I would rather see them go to that better reuse than having the workers haul them off to Howell’s.”