Local

Roads damaged in Friday's storms could take months to fix

HENRY COUNTY, Ga. — Friday's storms sent sewage from a manhole into a creek. Channel 2 Action News gathered new video tonight of more metro Atlanta roads that need major repairs.

We've learned the damage could take months to fix.

Neighbors are taking it upon themselves to clean up the sewage spilling behind their homes.

Quinton Johnson said he understimated the weather warnings on Friday, and on Saturday, he saw a part of the road missing in front of his house.

A powerful storm on Indian Creek Road swallowed a chunk of it and now the road is closed due to safety concerns.

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"There's a concrete tunnel that goes under the bridge and I think it's just too much for heavy rains to go through that so it has to go over the top," Johnson said.

The damage to the road is extensive. Part of the road fell into the creek and the damage underneath the road is also extreme. The Public Works Department estimates replacing the road and repairing the damage could take three months.

In McDonough, 6 inches of rain fell at Darrell Johnson's house off Highway 23, which led to a city manhole overflowing on his property.

"The manhole that I see has sewage shooting out of it and that needs to be taken care of," Johnson said.

He said the runoff down his yard led to erosion along the creek behind his home.

"I lost a pretty good chunk of property Friday due to it," Johnson said.

Johnson contacted the city administrator, who sent a Public Works employee to Johnson's house on Friday evening to investigate more.

For Johnson, the more it rains, the more his property ends up in the creek.

"I shouldn't be losing yard on account of that," he said.

Longtime neighbors said that, about 20 years ago, the same part of the road collapsed.

This time, Public Works said it will hire an engineer to evaluate a plan to repair the concrete culvert underneath.