Madison County leaders discuss road conditions, winter storm response during meeting

MADISON COUNTY, Tenn. — The Madison County Commission held a special-called meeting Monday morning to fill a vacancy for one of their seats.

However, the meeting became a discussion related to how the county performed during the first major winter storm of the year.

The public has overwhelmingly voiced their frustration regarding the road conditions that continue following the winter storm. At the commission meeting, Madison County Mayor AJ Massey says there were issues between the county and TDOT that impacted the clean-up.

“TDOT has districts. They did not focus on anything in our district except for I-40. That is what I was told straight from TDOT. I can give you all that information. They did, however, those counties that did not have I-40 running through them, those districts and that response was focused on their state routes,” said Mayor Massey.

Bart Walls, who is in charge of Madison County’s Highway Department, says having a salt-brine mix to use in the future is much more effective than the common rock salt that most departments use.

“If a pre-treatment strategy is a direction that this body wants to pursue, a small-scale brine production and storage facility with the appropriate application equipment would require an investment of approximately $500,000,” said Walls.

Carl Alexander is the chair of the budget committee. We asked him what it would take if it was decided that more equipment needs to be bought to help with road conditions during winter weather.

“It is the perfect time for it if they want to consider it because we do have the upcoming budget process for the next year. It will just be budgeting for it. If that is the decision they make, it will be simple to do,” said Alexander.

Mayor Massey says that they did not knock it out of the park and could have done some things differently. They will be having discussions on how to handle things in the future.

Walls also said that they are continuing to get more deliveries of salt to spread out around the county.

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