As rain fell across the county on Tuesday streams and creeks were on the rise and county officials were keeping a weather eye out for danger.
“We’ve had some water in the roadways,” Carter County Road Superintendent Roger Colbaugh said. “In most cases it’s been because of leaves and debris stopping up the pipes.”
Colbaugh said his department had received numerous reports from around the county of clogged ditches and culverts causing water to overflow into roadways. Many of the reports came from the Stoney Creek and Roan Mountain communities, he said.
“We’ve had crews going al over the county,” Colbaugh said. Primarily, those crews have been working to clear ditches, drain pipes, culverts, box culverts and around bridges of debris to keep water from backing up and flooding nearby roads and properties.
The highway department also had crews out working on Tuesday night clearing some fallen trees out of roads, Colbaugh said.
Despite the swollen streams and areas of localized minor flooding, Colbaugh said the overall situation in the county is good.
“We’ve not had any major flooding,” Colbaugh said. “There’s been no damage that I know of and we’ve not had to close any roads or bridges.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Colbaugh said waters were beginning to recede some as rains slacked off.
Colbaugh was not the only keeping an eye on the county’s roads and waterways.
Carter County Emergency Management Agency Director Gary Smith spent part of his day on Wednesday traveling around the county checking on streams, rivers and roads.
Smith said he had not received any reports of flooding but he had seen some streams in the Hampton area that were close to breaching their banks.
Officials were also keeping an eye on the Doe River, particularly in the area of the historic Covered Bridge. Smith said he and EMA Training Officer Billy Harrell went to the bridge to check the water levels there on Wednesday.
Fed from many smaller streams as it winds down from Roan Mountain, the Doe River travels under the Covered Bridge and over the Weir Dam before journeying on to merge with the Watauga River. On Wednesday afternoon, the waters of the Doe were churning and muddy and straining at the banks. Water was flowing over the observation deck on the west side of the Weir Dam while debris could be seen in the churning waters of the fish ladder on the east side of the dam. Several large tree branches were also observed floating down the river and toppling over the Weir Dam.