Harrowing accident shreds 190th
125 feet of old US-56’s asphalt chewed up
Staff writer
The surface of a well-traveled county road was torn up Saturday evening when the operator of a tractor, whom the county sheriff’s office declined to identify, dragged a disc about 125 feet on the asphalt.
The mishap shut 190th Rd. between Kanza and Limestone Rds. until Monday afternoon.
“This is the worst one I have ever been involved with,” Brice Goebel, Marion County engineer said of the damage wrought by farm equipment.
The disc, with cutting metal blades, typically used to break up soil, was attached to the tractor and scoured 125 feet of the surface, he said.
“It just disced it up,” Goebel said. “Two inches of asphalt was removed.”
Undersheriff David Huntley said he did not know whether the driver was aware of the accident. No citations have been issued.
Goebel said the crews could not easily patch the damage, so the road — the most heavily traveled county route — was shut down for safety’s sake.
Crews then cleaned off the roadway and put cold mix and compacted it, he said.
Goebel didn’t have an estimate of the damage but said his crew tried to get the road back open as fast as possible.
“We rearranged schedules to make this a priority,” he said.
Eastbound motorists had a quick and easy detour a mile north to US-56 via Kanza Rd., also blacktopped. Westbound motorists, however, had to traverse a muddy and rock-strewn Limestone Rd. to reach US-56, causing at least one accident.