Tropical Storm Edouard renews concerns over long-standing road problems in Indian Springs

𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐍, 𝐓𝐞𝐱𝐚𝐬 – For 83-year-old Sally Gregory, the deteriorating roads around her Indian Springs home are more than an inconvenience. Earlier this year, she said they nearly prevented emergency crews from reaching her when she needed help most.

In April, Gregory said she suffered a bleeding ulcer and began throwing up blood. Her family called 911, but the ambulance struggled to navigate the dips and deep ruts leading to her home.

Gregory was eventually taken to the hospital, but the experience left her worried about what could happen during her next medical emergency.

“Hopefully I don’t have to go back in an ambulance. I don’t want to, but if they had to come through here, you know, I don’t want the ambulance to get stuck with me in the back of it or anyone else,” Gregory said.

Her daughter, Laurie Barnes, said she has to drive about 3 mph to maneuver her car through mud and around deep holes on the road leading to Gregory’s home.

“It’s just hard because when, when your mom’s having a medical issue like she had and you’re scared to death she’s going to die,” Barnes said.

Residents say the deteriorating roads are a long-standing problem, but heavy rain from Tropical Storm Edouard made the conditions even worse and renewed questions about who is responsible for keeping them passable.

“It’s bad out here,” Gregory said.

𝐎𝐱𝐲𝐠𝐞𝐧 𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐦𝐮𝐝𝐝𝐲 𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐝

The danger residents described became clear Thursday when a driver delivering oxygen to elderly residents without power became stuck on another muddy road in Indian Springs.

Jordan Sprinkle, a driver for AdaptHealth, was delivering oxygen bottles to people who could not use their electric oxygen concentrators during the outage.

“Big hole in the road. It looked like I can make it through it, but it sunk,” Sprinkle said.

Sprinkle said he had received at least 12 or 13 calls for oxygen that day but had completed only about five deliveries by the time his van became stuck.

“They’re sitting there either gasping for breath or they’re urgent and they’re about to die because they can’t get oxygen in their lungs,” Sprinkle said.

At the time, someone in a nearby home was waiting for the oxygen inside his van.

“We need to be able to get oxygen out to these folks,” Sprinkle said. “And at the moment, there’s literally somebody sitting in a house right up the road waiting on me to get oxygen to them, and I’m not able to.”

The KPRC 2 Storm Tracker crew helped pull the van out of the mud so Sprinkle could continue his deliveries.

𝐌𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐲

The stalled delivery highlighted the core issue in Indian Springs: Most roads in the community are not maintained by Polk County.

Residents and members of the Indian Springs Property Owners Association estimate that only about one-third of the roads are county-maintained. The rest are managed by the POA, which is run by a small group of volunteers.

The POA collects $60 per deed each year for road maintenance, but volunteers said the money is not enough to cover the cost of fuel, materials and equipment repairs across the community.

Tony Kelley, an Indian Springs resident who operates the POA’s road equipment, estimated that the community has between 35 and 40 miles of roads. He said only three volunteers currently operate the equipment used to repair them.

“With the equipment we’ve got, our hands are tied. The maintenance eats us up, the fuel eats us up. But we keep going,” Kelley said.

Kelley said the roads are made from a mixture of clay, sand and gravel that washes apart when it rains. Many roads also lack adequate ditches and drainage, causing the same areas to wash out repeatedly.

“The roads are our biggest nightmare,” Kelley said. “Even a small storm, if it blows through and dropped 2 or 3in of rain. This is what we get. It’s not. It’s not crowned. There’s no ditches for drainage.”

Kelley acknowledged that the county sometimes brings rock to severely washed-out areas, but he said temporary repairs do not address the underlying drainage problem.

“If there’s a really bad washed out area, the county will jump on it pretty quick. Kudos to them. They’ll bring out rock or whatever is necessary,” Kelley said. “It’s like putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound.”

𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐝𝐬

Barnes and other residents want Polk County to assume responsibility for more of the privately maintained roads.

“It would be preferable to have the county manage these roads, because then we know that the roads will be maintained and fixed, and ambulance services would be able to come back here when needed for emergencies,” Barnes said.

Under Polk County’s subdivision regulations, a road must meet county construction and drainage standards, pass inspection and remain in good condition for at least two years. Commissioners Court must then vote to add the road to the county maintenance system.

Those standards include adequate drainage, a stabilized and compacted base and sufficient roadway and right-of-way width.

Residents said bringing older, deteriorated roads up to those standards could be too expensive.

“No, they can’t afford that because most of the people here are on fixed incomes, on Social Security, retired elderly,” Barnes said.

Gregory said she is among those living on a fixed income.

Barnes said her mother and sister have asked for help without seeing long-term improvements.

“I feel like we’re left out,” Barnes said. “We’re left out on everything. Because this is, this is a situation that needs to be handled and it’s not handled.”

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐤 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐲 𝐬𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐜𝐚𝐧 — 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐭 — 𝐝𝐨

Polk County Judge Sydney Murphy said state law prevents the county from using taxpayer money to permanently improve private property.

“I do not have the answer to that, because the way that the legislation is written and the way that the federal and state government respond is that taxpayer dollars can only be utilized to benefit all the taxpayers,” Murphy said over the phone. “And so any of those roads that are private, whether they are a private subdivision road or a private driveway or a private anything, is private property, and we are not allowed to go on there and spend taxpayer dollars fixing that.”

Murphy said she understands how residents ended up in this position. She said some subdivisions were developed decades ago with roads that appeared adequate at the time but may not have met county specifications.

“And let me tell you, I totally get it. I totally get it,” Murphy said.

She described how a road can deteriorate over several decades after people have already purchased homes along it.

“Well, then ten, 20, 30 years later, I don’t have a road. I have a rut. And I can’t get out when it rains. And what am I supposed to do now?” Murphy said.

When asked what low-income residents can do if they cannot afford to bring their roads up to county standards, Murphy acknowledged there is no simple solution.

“That I do not know. That I do not know,” Murphy said. “I’ve tried for 12 years to find a solution to that.”

Murphy said that, as she understands the law, an individual precinct commissioner may be able to participate in certain arrangements by providing labor or equipment. However, she said the county cannot purchase the materials needed to rebuild a private road.

She also said each subdivision presents different financial, physical and legal circumstances.

𝐖𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐝𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐥𝐲 𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐲?

Gregory and Barnes said school buses previously traveled along the road and that they believed it had once been maintained by Polk County.

Murphy disputed the claim that the county previously maintained the road and then abandoned it.

“That’s inaccurate,” Murphy said.

Murphy said that before she took office in 2015, private roads had been included on county maps without a clear distinction between private and county-maintained roads.

The county then conducted a lengthy review that included notifying property owners and examining historical information to determine the status of each road, Murphy said.

“That’s not one of those things where you just kind of boom, do it,” Murphy said.

She said roads with disputed or unclear classifications were reviewed and that the process has been conducted twice.

𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐮𝐩 𝐭𝐨 $𝟓 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧

Polk County has applied for as much as $5 million through the Texas General Land Office’s 2024 Disasters Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Local Communities Program.

If approved, the money would be used to repair county-maintained roads in Indian Springs. Murphy said the type of work would depend on each road’s location, current condition and storm damage.

“The fixes all vary depending on the location, the condition, how much damage was done,” Murphy said.

An asphalt road would likely be repaired with asphalt, while a rock road would generally receive rock unless enough money were available for an upgrade.

“You have to keep in mind that you don’t want to put asphalt on it and then not have the money to come back and maintain it at that level,” Murphy said.

The grant money could not be used to improve privately maintained roads.

“No, ma’am. It cannot because it is taxpayer funded money that is being administered by the state of Texas or by the federal government,” Murphy said. “And actually in terms of GLO, it goes from the federal government to the state for them to manage those monies.”

The General Land Office told KPRC 2 that Polk County had not yet been approved for the grant. Awards are expected to be announced Wednesday.

Murphy said she and former state Rep. James White previously searched for grants or other government programs that could help privately maintained subdivisions, but they did not identify an option the county could pursue.

“When I first came into office, which would have been in 2015, I looked and looked and looked and asked,” Murphy said. “But there are no options that the government, in our case county government, can pursue for them.”

𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞

Although the county cannot permanently rebuild private roads, Murphy said officials may provide limited emergency assistance after a major disaster if residents become isolated.

“Oh, well, we do everything we can,” Murphy said. “If they have a major catastrophe, then yes, we have a window of opportunity when we can go in there and help them, but we cannot go in there and build their road.”

Murphy said county crews could potentially replace a culvert or temporarily restore access if residents have no way to leave. She said that emergency authority is limited to a short period after a disaster.

“We can go in there and help them get out,” Murphy said.

However, that emergency assistance does not provide a long-term solution for residents who want their roads brought up to county standards and accepted for county maintenance.

Back outside her Indian Springs home, Gregory said understanding the county’s legal limitations does not make the road safer or give residents the money needed to fix it.

“I’m on a fixed income like so many of them are,” Gregory said.

For Gregory and her daughter, the central question remains unanswered: If residents cannot afford to rebuild the roads and the county cannot use taxpayer money to help, where do they turn?