Community News

Repair of Kanuga Lake Road is under way

From left, the NCDOT is working on plans to repair broken underground pipes on ramp from the U.S. 25 Connector to I-26. A DOT crew is installing a new 9-foot aluminum culvert on Kanuga Lake Road. Appledore Avenue remains closed at Greenville Highway.

By Lightning Reports, Published: April 8, 2021

Eleven months after a big rainstorm caused a section of Kanuga Lake Road to collapse, a repair job is under way that should lead to the reopening of the road later this month.

NCDOT crews are installing a 9-foot aluminum pipe to replace the old pipe damaged in the washout. A detour around Kanuga Lake Road will remain in place for a few more weeks, said David Uchiyama, spokesman for the NCDOT in Western North Carolina. The work is being done by the state agency's Division 14 bridge maintenance crews. The road is expected to reopen on April 16 with a gravel surface and will be paved soon after. 

The Kanuga Lakes Road jobs is one of several maintenance or repair jobs that have been unattended for the past year.

Lonnie Watkins, the DOT engineer in charge of maintenance for Henderson, Transylvania and Polk counties, said Division 14 is seeking authorization to let a contract for repairing an unstable section of the westbound exit ramp from the U.S. 25 Connector onto I-26 West.

"We are working up an estimate to request funding because that's going to be a major repair and hopelly funding will get approved and we can proceed," Watkins said. The repair is a big job because "the pipe is very deep and the box is very deep that it ties into. ... We're hoping once we get it submitted, within maybe a month or two we can get funding and then we would do an official design because right now we're looking at a preliminary conceptual design."