Valley Grande resident speaks out about dangerous dirt road

From the West Alabama Newsroom–

The condition of a dirt road in Valley Grande is raising safety concerns for the families who live there — and questions about whose responsibility it is — to fix it.

Dallas County Road 508 in Valley Grande is in really bad shape.

“It’s all washed out in certain places. We can’t get in and out. And we’re to the point now that we can’t even receive mail. The post office say they not coming anymore until something is done around here about this road,” said Anderson Smith.

Smith and his wife live in one of the five houses located on the dead end road. He says the condition of the road has everyone who lives on it — afraid for their safety.

“Everybody that lives on this road is sick,” Smith said.

“And right behind me here, I called for an ambulance for my wife cause she was having seizures. They couldn’t get across this hill. They slid in the ditch.”

Smith says he reached out to county officials to try and get the road fixed — but never reached out to Valley Grande officials about the problem — even though the road is located — within the city limits.

“The first step is either contact city hall and you know we’ll have somebody take a look at it. And we’ll contact the county,” said Valley Grande mayor Wayne Labbe.

“That’s the best way to do it.”

The county is responsible for maintaining about 840 miles of county roads — at a cost of about $250,000 dollars per mile.

“The roads that we usually plan to do is the roads with the highest traffic,” said Commissioner Vivian Rogers.

“If I could pave every dirt road in Dallas County I definitely would. But we can’t do it. We don’t have the money to do it.

Smith maintains the situation on County Road 508 is dangerous — and the city and or the county — needs to do something about it.

“I don’t care who do it. I really don’t. Something need to be done.”