HICKORY, N.C. — Heavy rain over the weekend led to a road in Hickory being washed out, and Channel 9 learned that it may be months before the road reopens.
The pavement crumbled on 39th Avenue Drive NW, and now there’s water pooling at the bottom. About 800 vehicles travel on the road daily.
Channel 9’s Dave Faherty spoke with neighbors who said the area received several inches of rainfall over about 90 minutes late Monday night.
The North Carolina Department of Transportation says the road collapsed after a culvert was damaged by runoff from the storm. The state says it may be the end of August before the road reopens.
Neighbors say the road is used a lot during the morning hours to get children to Jenkins Elementary. Fortunately, school let out last Friday, so the state has some time to make repairs.
“I think all the rain we saw last night was all runoff,” said resident Chip Huffman. “Because the ground was so hard, it couldn’t take it in. And you take everything from the Viewmont area, and it funnels right through, here so there was a lot of water that came through.”
Many folks know the area as Huffman Cove, which sits on the south side of Lake Hickory.
Water poured into Lake Hickory from the Icard Dam on Monday in Alexander County. Duke Energy lake levels show the recent rainfall caused Lake Hickory to rise nearly 2 feet in the last 6 days.
Faherty visited Caldwell and Alexander counties after they both had high water Monday night, and neighbors said the difference in lake levels since the rain started was dramatic.
Matthew Barghausen works on the docks along the lake and has noticed a huge difference after months of very dry weather.
“Some docks were on shore and just getting to them was pretty bad,” he said.
Now, he can “get all the way up on shore with the boat.”
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