Though 2020 has been a remarkable year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Guthrie County Secondary Roads Department is grateful for the quiet year they’ve had in terms of weather.

County Engineer Josh Sebern remarked last year that 2019 was the worst for secondary roads as Iowa was faced with multiple large snow events, hard freezes, rapid melting, and floods. With less catastrophic weather so far this year, Sebern says they’ve been productive in reapplying aggregate that was washed out, “We’ve certainly made up progress, we’ve covered some ground, I still would say we’re not 100% there yet. We’re still trying to get a lot of material hauled out to the roadways, just because we lost so much material over the whole road network in that last spring.”

Sebern notes that the county could benefit from some rainfall, as the recent dry weather has loosened the materials on gravel roads and have made them difficult to maintain. Another seasonal occurrence for secondary roads crews are pavement heaves due to heat and humidity. Sebern says his crews have done concrete patches on three areas this summer but were able to address those trouble spots quickly.