Last summer, we had a wind farm put up between Farmland and Modoc, just south of IN-1.
It took the better part of a year to put up all these pinwheels, as I like to call them.
IN-1 was blocked off for that time, starting where it meets US-36 at Modoc and ending 6.5 miles north of there.
The reason for IN-1 being blocked off was so that the huge semi trailers could get the windmill pieces up and to where they would be assembled.
Since the loads were so huge and heavy, the road would be torn up by this, and the wind farm company had agreed to completely repave IN-1 after they were finished with their windmill project as part of the deal.
This was no mere resurfacing, but a total redo, with the pavement taken all the way up, the roadbed regraded and compacted, and totally new pavement put down.
All the traffic was shunted onto adjacent roads during that time, all of which were in nowhere near as good condition as IN-1 had been.
I know, because I had to drive County Road 900 West for that time every day getting to and from work, and that road is in pretty sorry shape.
I daresay that most of Randolph county was pretty excited to finally have IN-1 reopened so we could get the use of it back.
They finally reopened it some time last winter, November, if I recollect correctly.
It looked pretty good, too, a bit smoother than it had been before the project.
Well, as winter progressed, it became clear that they did a poor job of it, with several nasty chuckholes appearing literally overnight.
Before winter had even ended, the road had gone from poor to outright awful in multiple locations, so much so that I saw a deputy at a particularly nasty spot with his radio to tell the county to put up warning signs at the spot.
There are road closed signs at each intersection of the road now, but no construction, and I drive carefully around them each day, wondering if and when anything will be done about this.
There are at least two spots where it's flat out impossible to drive above 5 mph without causing catastrophic tire and suspension damage and probably a terrible wreck; and even then, I get bounced all over the place while creeping over those two spots.
There are at least a dozen to a score of other chuckholes that at the least would do the same to a person who was unaware that they were there.
It's basically a slalom course now.
I decided to take photos of several (but nowhere near all) of the worst spots on the road, and I've even indicated how far up the road each is going north, using US-36 at Modoc as the starting point.
This may sound boring to some folks, but I think it would be good to know for anyone having a wind farm contemplated in your area.
If only we had known how this would go down...
Here's a link to a Muncie Star Press article about this exact wind farm - Wind farm blows into Randolph County
Okay, here are the photos I took, indicating how far north of US-36 at Modoc each is and some description about each.
This one is really nasty, but avoidable with care, at 0.4 miles north of Modoc.
This one is also avoidable, but even nastier. 1.1 miles north of Modoc.
No chuckhole here, but this standing water was never here before, and now it's there all the time, always completely covering the eastbound lane of the road now. They clearly put in no drainage or culvert of any sort. 4.6 miles north of Modoc.
The following three photos are the part where the deputy was with his radio to have warning signs put up. It stretches all the way across the road at a small bridge, making it completely unavoidable and impossible to cross at more than a creep, and even then, it's extremely rough, and it will definitely cause major damage and an accident at normal road speeds. This is 4.8 miles north of Modoc.
Just a bit north of the last spot, but a nasty strip along the shoulder, this time at 4.9 miles north of Modoc.
Two very similar chuckholes only 1/10 mile apart, starting 5.8 miles north of Modoc.
Here is the northernmost chuckhole, and it's a doozy, totally impossible to avoid and the kind that will do major damage if traveled at normal speed. I took two photos of it, the first approaching from the north of the warning signs that mark its location, and the second approaching from the south of it.
This final photo is of the stretch of the same road, immediately north of where they completely ripped up the road and redid it, 7.0 miles north of Modoc. Note how nice the surface looks, even though I don't believe it had been resurfaced for at least a decade, maybe longer.
It took the better part of a year to put up all these pinwheels, as I like to call them.
IN-1 was blocked off for that time, starting where it meets US-36 at Modoc and ending 6.5 miles north of there.
The reason for IN-1 being blocked off was so that the huge semi trailers could get the windmill pieces up and to where they would be assembled.
Since the loads were so huge and heavy, the road would be torn up by this, and the wind farm company had agreed to completely repave IN-1 after they were finished with their windmill project as part of the deal.
This was no mere resurfacing, but a total redo, with the pavement taken all the way up, the roadbed regraded and compacted, and totally new pavement put down.
All the traffic was shunted onto adjacent roads during that time, all of which were in nowhere near as good condition as IN-1 had been.
I know, because I had to drive County Road 900 West for that time every day getting to and from work, and that road is in pretty sorry shape.
I daresay that most of Randolph county was pretty excited to finally have IN-1 reopened so we could get the use of it back.
They finally reopened it some time last winter, November, if I recollect correctly.
It looked pretty good, too, a bit smoother than it had been before the project.
Well, as winter progressed, it became clear that they did a poor job of it, with several nasty chuckholes appearing literally overnight.
Before winter had even ended, the road had gone from poor to outright awful in multiple locations, so much so that I saw a deputy at a particularly nasty spot with his radio to tell the county to put up warning signs at the spot.
There are road closed signs at each intersection of the road now, but no construction, and I drive carefully around them each day, wondering if and when anything will be done about this.
There are at least two spots where it's flat out impossible to drive above 5 mph without causing catastrophic tire and suspension damage and probably a terrible wreck; and even then, I get bounced all over the place while creeping over those two spots.
There are at least a dozen to a score of other chuckholes that at the least would do the same to a person who was unaware that they were there.
It's basically a slalom course now.
I decided to take photos of several (but nowhere near all) of the worst spots on the road, and I've even indicated how far up the road each is going north, using US-36 at Modoc as the starting point.
This may sound boring to some folks, but I think it would be good to know for anyone having a wind farm contemplated in your area.
If only we had known how this would go down...
Here's a link to a Muncie Star Press article about this exact wind farm - Wind farm blows into Randolph County
Okay, here are the photos I took, indicating how far north of US-36 at Modoc each is and some description about each.
This one is really nasty, but avoidable with care, at 0.4 miles north of Modoc.
This one is also avoidable, but even nastier. 1.1 miles north of Modoc.
No chuckhole here, but this standing water was never here before, and now it's there all the time, always completely covering the eastbound lane of the road now. They clearly put in no drainage or culvert of any sort. 4.6 miles north of Modoc.
The following three photos are the part where the deputy was with his radio to have warning signs put up. It stretches all the way across the road at a small bridge, making it completely unavoidable and impossible to cross at more than a creep, and even then, it's extremely rough, and it will definitely cause major damage and an accident at normal road speeds. This is 4.8 miles north of Modoc.
Just a bit north of the last spot, but a nasty strip along the shoulder, this time at 4.9 miles north of Modoc.
Two very similar chuckholes only 1/10 mile apart, starting 5.8 miles north of Modoc.
Here is the northernmost chuckhole, and it's a doozy, totally impossible to avoid and the kind that will do major damage if traveled at normal speed. I took two photos of it, the first approaching from the north of the warning signs that mark its location, and the second approaching from the south of it.
This final photo is of the stretch of the same road, immediately north of where they completely ripped up the road and redid it, 7.0 miles north of Modoc. Note how nice the surface looks, even though I don't believe it had been resurfaced for at least a decade, maybe longer.
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