By Ginger Broomes

The Orange Leader

Commissioners Court adopted a resolution, on Tuesday, stating that they would ask the Texas Department of Transportation to raise the Adams Bayou Bridge along the Interstate 10 feeder road in Orange. Johnny Trahan, commissioner for Precinct 1 presented the issue.

“We’ve been talking about this for weeks,” Trahan said. “If you’ve been down to the bridge, you know that on a good day, it’s 12 to 14 inches above the water. It’s got multiple pilings in it. It’s a good place to catch debris.”

The resolution does not guarantee the changes will be approved and put into place by TxDOT, merely it states that the court agrees unanimously to petition TxDOT to either remove or replace this bridge with a taller bridge to alleviate flooding issues that were present before Harvey, and continue to exist even during minor flood events.

All commissioners were present but Judge Stephen Brint Carlton was not. Commissioner Jody Crump, acted as Judge Pro Tem.

May 2018 was declared Motorcycle Safety and Awareness Month by the Court and a proclamation was adopted stating the same. A representative from the Combat Veterans’ Motorcycle organization was presented with the proclamation.

The Commissioners approved renewing the use license for FEMA until April 24 for their use of the Orange County Expo Center as a Disaster Recovery Center, as there are still residents using the facility daily, filing their FEMA appeals and related documents. The amount of usage of the Expo Center will be addressed again at that time.

Clark Slacum, County Engineer, brought up his latest suggestions as part of the Hazard Mitigation projects listed by the committee that was formed earlier in the year. He recommended to the court multiple roads in Orange County that continued to have drainage issues and suggested looking at adding building up said roads to the list.

Johnny Trahan also suggested looking at issues that any of the members noticed arising with the upcoming rain in the forecast.

“We continue to work on drainage. We’ve got some rain coming up this week; if you see an issue in front of your home and you think you can take care of it, please do. Our guys can’t possibly be everywhere at once. There’s just so much work to be done.

“Know that we are working on it. We continue to work on it.” Trahan said. “The drainage is really on the forefront of everything we do right now.”