Hancock County residents frustrated over construction delays

HANCOCK COUNTY — Frustration continues over additional delays to a project that has closed a portion of the Mt. Comfort Corridor for the last seven months.

People who live in the area of the construction are concerned with the road conditions and say the detour routes offer hazardous conditions for their commute.

“The roads are just absolutely falling apart so you know the hazards of actually driving that detour have just continued to get worse,” John Coy, a Hancock County resident, said.

Coy takes County Road 700 West, the detour route put in place by Hancock County, every day to and from work.

“It continues to get a little more treacherous as far as the travel goes during the winter months," Coy said. "There are certain pieces of construction and freight that kind of goes down that corridor that is over-sized loads and those roads are not designed for it, so it's scary on that side of it and dangerous."

A portion of the Mt. Comfort Corridor was initially closed in July for a project that was supposed to take a few months. The opening date was scheduled for the end of November, but after multiple delays - the latest which said it would reopen Feb. 8 - the road remains closed. The county now says they hope to see it fully open by mid-March.

The county said material and labor delays are the cause of the extended closure.

“All they're really saying is that there's a labor material shortage," Coy said. "As a contractor myself it's really hard to think that we've started this big of a project that has this much of an impact to so many people and we didn't have materials already secured or procured or laid out ready to go complete the project."

Gary Pool, director of the Hancock County Highway Department, said he understands the frustration coming from people who live in the area.

“I appreciate their patience we’ve just had a bunch of stuff go wrong,” Pool said.

Pool says the project is installing underground storm water drains; to do that properly they have to put the pipe in, bring in steel to put on top of the pipes, pour concrete and then asphalt to finish the road.

“It took us forever to get the steel because there was a big steel shortage and you know the fall, by the time we got the steel, then there was a labor shortage cause I-69 was wrapping up and they're finishing everything on I-69," Pool said.

It wasn't just the labor and steel shortages though, Pool said a mix-up with the material which had to be removed and completely re-done was responsible for almost a month of the delay.

"So we finally get the labor and they put in a bunch of flowable backfill, which is just like concrete without rocks in it and it didn't work," Pool said. "They sorted out with IMI... but they spent a couple weeks putting it in and then they had to spend a couple of weeks taking it out so we lost a month there."

Pool said the project is finally moving in the right direction.

“The good news is we are having good weather now and we are getting a bunch of good weather next week so I’m hoping we are within a couple weeks of getting this thing open,” Pool said.

Although they hoped this project would completed last year and 700 West wouldn't have been used by such a high volume of traffic for long, Pool said they always planned to repave 700 west this spring.

“We know 7 West is in a tough spot but it's just so hard to fix those holes. We can't close it, we can't close 7 West right now that's worse than the potholes if we close 7 West it would be complete disaster,” said Pool.

Hopefully this project will be completed soon and this road will be paved, but unfortunately the job isn’t complete on the Mt. Comfort Corridor, they’ll be adding four roundabouts soon but Pool said there won’t be another full closure on the Corridor.