LOGAN — Basically it’s a miracle that northern Utah dodged the worst scenario when it came to local flooding this year.
On KVNU’s For the People (County Hour) on Wednesday, Cache County Executive David Zook said it could have been much worse.
“The fact that this melt-off has been as gradual as it’s been, is a great blessing, and I’m incredibly thankful for it. We do have some damage, and I can tell you about some of those, I’ve been out to see some of the spots. They’re mostly mountain roads, so down here in the valley, we’ve fared pretty well, we are going to do a couple of repair projects down here in the valley related to flooding and storm water and bridges. But most of the damage occurred up in the mountains on mountain roads, unpaved roads,” Zook explained.
Notably, High Creek road where the road and campgrounds are closed up the canyon to motorized vehicles. Also Smithfield Canyon, where the road is closed at the Summit Creek bridge near the Smithfield Campground to motorized vehicles, but the campground itself is open.
Other valley roads have been undergoing reconstruction and realignment, such as 3200 South in Nibley.
“Down in Nibley, 3200 South and (SR) 89-91, that project has been under construction for awhile now, it’s moving along well. It’s on time, to be completed this fall, thank goodness, we’ll have a traffic signal there. That is such a dangerous, off-set intersection, it’s hard to see, some really serious accidents there. It’s going to change the traffic pattern, it’s going to be a different routing of traffic a little bit there. So, that’ll be something new for people to learn, but you just follow the pavement.”
Also, among the big projects is the SR 30 widening which started on Wednesday. The goal is to widen the highway from 1000 West to the Petersboro/ Mendon turn off.
But the big news that Zook announced during the show was that thanks to the Governor, the Utah legislature and especially the assistance of Senator Chris Wilson and UDOT, they were able to fund a fiber optic line through Logan Canyon.
He said this will mean that cell towers can be installed in the canyon, also traffic cams and changeable message signs.
“And UDOT just awarded a contract, and it’s supposed to be under construction within about a month. That’s going to be awesome, I don’t have any details yet about what exactly that’s going to look like, if that’s going to cause traffic issues, probably, there will probably be some impacts to that.”
But Zook said he is so thankful, as this is something that he’s been asking for, a couple of years now, as it’s an important safety issue for the well-travelled highway.