MARSHALL COUNTY, Ala. (WHNT) – Marshall County residents are continuing to plead with county officials to get a dangerous stretch of road repaired. However, they continue to be ignored.
According to the residents, the daily life of people living and traveling on Shin Point Road in Marshall County can be described as hazardous.
The road is covered in ruts with some measured at a foot deep.
“Some of my neighbors have had difficulty staying on the road. We don’t get emergency services. we don’t get our mail or trash services,” said Sue Vanderberg who lives on Shin Point Road.
The half-mile stretch of dirt and gravel located on the side of a mountain has deteriorated through the years. Vanderberg and the other residents say they have been pleading with the Marshall County Commission to repair the road for years.
She told News 19 that the condition of the road is so bad that emergency service vehicles, mail trucks and other deliveries can’t make it to a house. Residents must walk the half mile to have their garbage picked up at the bottom of the hill.
“It’s taking so long to get taxpayer services to a road that they should have services to,” Vanderberg said. “I just think that there could be some reform made.”
District 2 County Commissioner Rick Watson informed the residents last year that the road was made by a developer decades ago and therefore it was never added to the county’s inventory list.
There has been an ongoing dispute over who should maintain the road.
“When I got into office the problem was brought to me and I started working at looking at ways to try and help,” Watson said. “But it is not a county road, it will never be a county road and the county are not responsible for it.”
The residents were not too pleased with the response.
“I’m just worried that we won’t get services before something terrible happens,” Vanderberg said.
Watson says he’s devised a plan to install a water tower at the top of the mountain at Shin Point Road, therefore forcing the county to be responsible for the easement leading up to the water tower.
Discussion on the project is sure to continue at the next Marshall County Commission meeting.
