PHILLIPS – After almost a week under water, the section of Reeds Mill Road running along the Sandy River in Phillips finally became fully passable Friday afternoon, as town officials and road workers dug a ditch to divert water from the ice-jammed river away from the road.
Phillips Road Commissioner Steve Haines said Friday that the Sandy River jammed with ice after last Friday’s heavy rains, raising the water level 5 feet in some places and creating mounds of ice in the river bed up to 14 feet high.
River water and ice, blocked from moving downstream the usual way by the wall of ice, began running down Reeds Mill Road instead, Haines said. The flow blocked traffic, tore up concrete and swamped low lying land with about 3 feet of water.
“The rain pushed the ice together, ice on top of ice on top of ice,” Haines explained. “This is the worst I’ve ever seen it jammed,” he said. This week’s jam is the first time the Phillips section of river has become blocked with ice in 12 years, he added.
John and Firle Stinchfield, whose house sits at a dip between two hills along Reeds Mill Road, were stranded at home at various points during the past week, once for about 36 hours. John Stinchfield explained the possibility of flooding is one of the perils of living on such low-lying property, but that the high water is never life-threatening. “We sat here and didn’t leave the house for a day and half,” he said. “But it wasn’t a grave situation, by any means.”
Water began to recede on its own after the rain late last week, and after this Thursday’s big rainfall, but Reeds Mill Road did not become fully passable until Friday afternoon, after Haines and Franklin Country Emergency Management Director Tim Hardy got a special permit from the state DEP allowing the town to dig a ditch along the side of the road, diverting water into the woods next to the river.
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