Mississippi County strains to make numerous repairs

CHARLESTON, Mo. -- Mississippi County will clean up the rubble of the old Dogwood School and bill the owner -- as soon as it's able.

"The county is extremely busy right now doing a lot of other things that are critical to the infrastructure of the county," Carlin Bennett, presiding county commissioner, said during a County Commission meeting late last week.

Bennett explained county road and bridge crews are fixing collapsed or blocked drainage pipes and culverts, grading gravel roads, fixing potholes and all the other maintenance required to get county roads in acceptable condition after hard rains.

Commissioner Darrell Jones said he was told it should take only two or three days to complete the cleanup of the Dogwood School site once workers start there.

"A lot of it can be buried, we think," Bennett said.

Some of the broken brick and concrete from the school will be used as fill to put in flood erosion holes near County Highway 310, commissioners said.

"I know it's unsightly out there," Bennett said of the Dogwood School site. "It will get cleaned up. We're trying to get caught up on everything."

Mowing, however, is not among those tasks, as the county is still waiting to receive its new tractor; its delivery has been pending since May.

Bennett said the Scott County vendor has been overwhelmed with business and is trying to catch up.

To read more about conditions in Mississippi County, read The Southeast Missourian's recent story about the 2011 floodwall breach at http://www.semissourian.com/story/2091351.html.