Written by Emma Weber // Photo by Macy Cox
Many roads around campus and the greater Searcy area have been undergoing improvements.
Director of the Physical Resource Department Danny DeRamus said road work like this is ongoing annual work.
“This work is being done by the city,” DeRamus said. “Every year, Searcy repaves a certain number of streets to keep up with damage and repairs.”
Director of Public Safety Craig Russell said the work is happening all over Searcy. One road that was repaved was Dr. Jimmy Carr Drive, which affected students in the female dorms nearby and Legacy residents.
“This is a city street, and I believe the City of Searcy is doing this work,” Russell said. “They have been resurfacing streets all over town, not just in this one location.”
Additionally, construction knocked out the phone and wifi services at Slader’s Alaskan Dumplings on Jan. 17, and the issues were not resolved until Jan. 19.
Daniel Ockay, manager of Slader’s Alaskan Dumplings, said this and the maintenance of surrounding roads were inconvenient to business.
“It seems like the city could have done more to notify businesses and not be such a hindrance,” Ockay said. “They effectively shut down access to our business on our busiest day of the week on two separate weeks without notice. The crews were also severely uninformed. I had to ask them permission to even be able to park at the business.”
Junior Audrey Cartwright is a resident in Shores Hall who had to drive on the roads that were under construction to get around campus, as most of the work was being done on the women’s side of campus.
“The roadwork was frustrating because it threw off my groove,” Cartwright said. Cartwright’s frustration led her to take a different route to get around campus.
“After a while I was like, ‘I’m going to just go a different way,’” Cartwright said. “The initial experience was frustrating for how long it took, and then it became something I just avoided.”
Mark Lane, Searcy’s city engineer, said the weather is one reason for prolonged construction.
“They were initially scheduled to complete the work by the end of December,” Lane said. “They got a little ahead of themselves with the milling and could not lay asphalt due to the rain and/or temperatures.”
Lane went on to say work is expected to continue when the weather warms.
“If the weather dries up and warms I expect that they will have another week to week and a half of work,” Lane said.
