Bless Colorado County
Our driveway was damaged during the tax day flood a couple of weeks ago. It happened late Sunday night into Monday morning that we lost half our driveway. It was the worst storm with the greatest amount of rain we've seen since we moved out here in 2005. Ron put orange flags around the hole in an attempt to not have someone drive into it. I'm happy to report that we had no incidents or issues along those lines.
We were able to get in and out by weaving a path between the hole and the stand holding the gate code tablet. I would have been fairly frantic if we had been trapped either in or out of our property. We tried to notify the county about our hole. I looked for some county office that handles roads and bridges but came up empty. In the end I called the Emergency Management Coordinator because I figured he would know who I should contact. He was delightful and told me I should call Commissioner Tommy Hahn. In the immediate aftermath of the storms it wasn't a huge surprise that Commissioner Hahn's phone was either constantly busy or rang and rang. I'm not even sure his phone was functioning since ours wasn't. Ron happened to be in Columbus the middle of that week and dropped by the courthouse annex. He left our information with one of the county workers who promised to report our dilemma to the appropriate office.
I should say a little something about our beautiful Colorado County, Texas. I love our county. It's small enough that you have the feeling you know people. Lots of people. I understand that I don't really know most people out here but I feel like I will recognize people when I go into the courthouse annex to renew my license plates or at the DPS office to renew my driver's license. I feel like all the people I see at the HEB are my neighbors. I have always said that we have more cows in Colorado County than we do people. I finally looked it up. Over the last 3 or 4 years the USDA says we have had somewhere between 30,000 and 70,000 cows in the county. I think the actual number must depend on the price of beef but you get the idea. We have lots of cows and many people. Colorado County includes just under 1000 square miles with a population of just over 20,000 people. That's about 21 people per square mile. Columbus is our county seat and our largest city with a population of just under 4000.
When Ron wrote down our information and the fact that we needed help with our driveway I was completely confident that the need would be transmitted to the proper person. And it was. Bright and early the following Tuesday morning the county guys showed up to fill up our gaping hole. Thank you!
Two large dump trucks full of cobbles coated in clay, a pickup truck full of shovels and brooms and a tractor with a front end loader on one end and a bucket on the other all showed up to work on my driveway that morning. I was so pleased!
The driveway isn't really finished. It is basically flat and level but still needs a top coat of finer gravel to give it the totally completed look. The county guys said they would be back to do that after they finish up the chaos resulting from the flood. I have complete confidence they will do just that.