Madison Creek Road reopens

Residents in one Logan County neighborhood can now go home again.

Officials with the Division of Highways reopened the section of Madison Creek Road near Lyburn late Thursday evening. The road closed last week following a massive mudslide.

“It was huge.  It was a whole mountainside really,” said Brent Walker, spokesperson for the state Department of Transportation.  “What started out as just a pretty major slide became even larger with every raindrop, it seemed.”

A contractor, hired by the state Division of Highways, has been working since Dec. 9 to clear the slide, in an area near Route 10 that completely cut off access to a community of 70.  Last week, 40 people were evacuated from their homes using the Guyandotte River.

Walker said a process called “yo-yoing” was used to clear the slide, which some residents have blamed on construction on Route 10.

“They take a larger vehicle up at the top and they use their winch and they use these bulldozers, up the side the hill, to go ahead and push things down,” he explained.

The road that drivers are now using is a temporary road replacement and DOH officials said flaggers would be stationed along the route to help with traffic.

Work is scheduled to begin soon on a permanent fix, a causeway across the Guyandotte River. The DOH announced Thursday the construction would take about three weeks and crews would work during daylight hours 7 days a week with the exception of Christmas and New Year’s. The estimated cost is $1.7 million. The DOH said the low-level bridge would be in place for less than a year.