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North Highway 99 Was Just Paved. Now It’s Falling Apart. Why?
October 30, 2019
North Highway 99 was just repaved, and now it’s falling apart in several places. NorthEscambia.com reached out to find out why.
“We are actively investigating and trying to determine the source of the problem,” Escambia County District 5 Commissioner Steven Barry said, “so we can figure out how to solve it. I anticipate a redo.”
Work started in late May to resurface the county road from Highway 97 in Walnut Hill to the Alabama state line. The asphalt is now sinking, forming large ruts and cracking. It looks as if it is sliding away as it is pushed downward by passing traffic.
At least portions of the road will have to be milled and repaved. Just how much remains to be seen; it could be only failing sections or it could be much more of the 8.01 mile roadway.
“It’s going to get fixed, and it’s going to get fixed quickly when the source of the problem is found,” Barry said. “People will be held accountable. Those that are culpable will definitely be held accountable.”
Multiple core samples of the highway have been extracted and sent for analysis. “That’s going to tell a lot of the story about the source of the problem,” the commissioner said.
Low bidder on the project was Panhandle Grading & Paving at $2.4 million. NorthEscambia.com has learned that rather than hired an outside inspection firm, Escambia County was responsible for their own inspections and quality control as the project progressed as is often done on county projects.
Barry said he is ready to see repair work begin, even if that means starting before it is determined who is responsible for paying the associated costs.
“I promise the people that it will be fixed in a timely fashion. I will not force the public to wait and see who is fault; the rest we will work out,” he said.
North Highway 99 resurfacing was planned for 2024-25, but the Escambia County Commission fast tracked the advancement of $1,726,325 available in Local Option Sales Tax to last fiscal year and solicited bids.
The 8.01 mile roadway runs from Highway 97, past Highway 4 in Bratt and continues to the state line. It is a major north-south transportation corridor for the area. In addition to the school buses that serve Bratt Elementary on North Highway 99, buses travel the road twice-daily between Northview High and Ernest Ward Middle schools.
NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Comments
44 Responses to “North Highway 99 Was Just Paved. Now It’s Falling Apart. Why?”
@Sr. Roadway Inspector —Agree with you on the 90% not knowing. I am not familiar with your term “ripped asphalt was placed too thin”. By this do you mean a layer of course mixture base, below the finer top layer? I am still thinking a poor base was the cause. It is my understanding that the road was widened only on this side (the problem side), & the outer bad problem part had never been surfaced previously until now. I assumed the sinking to be from a poor base structure (too much sand?), that may have been only sand, with no other support material, before paving. Otherwise, it seems that the rest of the roadway would also have been affected by the asphalt being too thick, as you state.
90% of you morons commenting on here have no freaking idea what your talking about, too much time on your hands and need to learn more about roadway building before you start teaching it. The county not only subs out the work but also the inspection on the work. These programs should have been caught before they happened so that falls back on the contractor. There is a warranty on this work and it will be repaired by this contractor at their cost. “Jimmy” the under packing was packed correctly ? Wth have you been smoking ? Diesel fuel does break down asphalt but they dont use it in dump trucks, they use a release agent. All of the asphalt contractors in our area use FDOT and County approved mix designs and know how to pave. Yes so.e are better than others but they do know what they are doing regardless of low bidder. The asphalt that is rutting was placed too thick and the ripped asphalt was placed too thin. The inspector and the QC should have caught that. Last thing from me, TRUMP 2020 !!!!
Earthquake fault line or sewer line???
@Well on Oct.—The road is not sinking? Are we looking at the same first two photos? Looks to me to be at least a four inch or more drop-off (especially in the second photo from the top) that could substitute as a big drainage ditch.
@Well on Oct.—I believe you can plainly tell where the edge of the original road ended, & where there was an attempt to pave over what was previously the shoulder. The other side is not affected as it was part of the original road. In an attempt to widen the road, it was done on only one side, which obviously does not have a good base structure, & is presently probably only sand. It may have to be dug out to a depth of a foot or two, & filled with maybe gravel or crushed stone, or whatever would constitute a solid base to support the blacktop, a relatively soft material. I don’t believe either, there is a drainage problem there, as if there was, in theory it would have affected both sides, & not the consistent & narrow very long distance shown. Of course it looks like it is “sliding”. The weight of vehicles (& sinking base) has moved it in the path of least resistance. Like stepping in mud with your shoe, the mud squishes outward in many directions depending on the shape of your shoe, the weight applied, & what is next to it. I go with my brothers opinion, as he has about 40 years experience in that business of dealing with blacktop, & his company has done may critical specification major airport runways. I trust his professional opinion after further cause explanation from him earlier today.
Good investigative work there Charlie.
One slight flaw though is that the road is not sinking, as it looks in the pictures. The top layer of asphalt is sliding, big difference.
I sent this story to my brother in NY, who is an engineer for a company that does a lot of concrete & blacktop work. His professional opinion is that there is nothing wrong with the quality of the blacktop. Since the sinking problem is only on one side, it would appear to him that the road was widened on that damaged side, with no support base underneath, with what being there was most likely only a sand base that may not even support even a thin layer if had been concrete. The contractor however, should have probably questioned that fact before putting down the blacktop, which will not hold up without a strong base underneath. Blacktop absolutely needs a strong supporting base underneath.
Civil Engr thoughts: Could be site prep as noted. Many like occurrences are drainage and soil saturation issues. Look at the large cotton field and shoulder vegetation. I would immediately investigate drainage.
Instead of lawsuits, we would work out a repair solution utilizing both contractor and county/city/state assets. It kept cost down for all parties.
Margielu, Jimmy and Que Pasa and several others have hit the nail on the head. Inadequate supervision, engineering and probably workers that don’t have the experience to lay road beds. Could be any number of excuses. It really shouldn’t have happened with experienced road builders.
I live her an it is alot better than it was so I’m not complaining.fix it right an go on.no matter who did it could have look the same.usually roads inc gets everything but they got all the other jobs in the county.oh well fix the road right for the buses before an accident happens.it does throw your tire to the side an all this rain doesnt help.
i wonder how much the company and each of the higher ups family memebrs donated to whom for their campaigns….its easy to figure out WHY they cover for these big bus in the county.
No surprise as this is what happened to Beulah Road. It was paved about 3 years ago By I believe the same Contractor. Sink Holes, ” melted” Road way. about 20 yards was finally milled and patched. About 4 miles of the road looks like a DRY CRACKED DESERT LAKE FLOOR. All the reflectors are 95% gone and on a day like todays rain the Roads sucks for traction. the county to my knowledge has forgotten about it or something would have been done by now. the contractor should be banned from any new work until corrected.
There were probably no core samples taken at the time the work was preformed.Same thing as it been for the last few years. Anyone who lives in this area should stay on top of it. The county will find some way to put a bandage on it and call it good!! Believe me I’m still trying to get a screw up fixed that the country and the contractor knew about but have failed to fix it , and there has been no support from district 5 rep at all . They are trying to sweep it under the rug. Stay on them or it will not get fixed properly!!!!
Looking at some of the photos it looks like there is a couple of problems. 1- the under packing wasn’t packed correctly to support the weight or soft packing materials. 2- with pavement pulling and bending as it is the dump truck drivers are putting to much diesel fuel in the bed of their trucks. Which diesel fuel breaks down the chemicals in the tar which keeps it from harding property
Better fix it fast… imagine what lawyers will do to escambia if there is a fatal or serious injury accident because of that!
Low bidder – one has to bond a job like this and that makes all bidders eligible to construct project. Panhandle has been around a long time and has done many large and small state and county jobs. Who in the county planned and supervised this job? Did they do engineering on the design and did they inspect properly? If it was an overlay on existing, engineering optional, if it was a shoulder widening, engineering and field work would be required. Looks like an attorney’s dream and nightmare for county and contractor. Did they add drainage? Posting job letting plans we could speculate what happened. Regardless, Commissioner Barry, stick to your guns and get to the bottom of this construction failure please.
Ummm northendbratt “ loaded trucks what about farm tractors they ain’t feather weights
REGARDING:
“Low bidder…. Lol Please tell me you are not surprised. DUHHHH”
Being high bidder doesn’t guarantee highest quality workmanship. All bidders promise to follow a certain set of requirements. Inspectors guarantee they keep their word.
David for verification
Do you think all those loaded trucks traveling this road who are not supposed to be,are contributing to this just a little bit……
County inspectors a no no, possibly didn’t have time to set in the extreme heat we had. Road is not as level as other paving jobs.
Poor oversite for sure, but at least they are getting paved. SW area of county has been ignored. Sorrento Rd and Innerarity area ignored. I have been told the Escambia County jail is sucking up all funding. Now they want to expand jail while interest rates are low. What about all the tax payers footing the bill. Car owners should sue the county for the damage done to their cars, that would get their attention.
Wagon Wheel Rut.
Lowest bid will get you every time..
Not to mention, the curve on the other side by Bradberry Rd, if you so much as hit the yellow line there’s a lip that will pull you into the other lane. Scares me everytime.
Think that is bad look at Hwy 29, it is paved less than a 1/2 inch of pavement wait for it to start cracking and falling apart.
Low bidder…. Lol Please tell me you are not surprised. DUHHHH
Exact same thing happening in one place on Ziglar Road in Cantonment. 1 mile section redone about 3 months ago. Looks like the road is melting in one section.
This reminds me of Beulah Road near the dump – different contractor, same results.
The only way to prevent this is for the County to use honest testing companies, and hire them directly. It is often up to the contractor to hire the testing company, which is the equivalent to the fox guarding the hen house.
Honest testing companies and honest contractors are a rare breed, but the do exist.
Huh, figured it was Roads Inc. But good to know it’s not looking good on paving company options around here.
Backwoods Bubba good ole boy contract work.
Everyone is blaming the County, “the county should be sued” the county this blah blah blah. And to the special person who said “that’s what happens when you take the lowest bud”, if the other price was higher, this is the same person that will say “why did they pay so much when they could’ve paid much less” , in other words, people like this will always have something to complain about. If this isn’t an underwater stream that just popped up, my opinion is it is 100% of the contractors fault. Yes, shame on the county for not having the skills to properly inspect the work but shame on the contractor for doing crap work and not having their own quality control procedures in place. They should be eagerly waiting to correct this shotty work that has their company name standing behind it.
Is this the same company that did beulah near the dump? Beulah rd is the worst paving job I have ever seen. If it was panhandle that paved beulah and now hwy 99 I see a trending pattern of poor workmanship.
That is what happens when the lowest bidder wins the contract
Wow! This is BAD. Did the county do good inspections? On time inspections? Did the contractor do inferior Work? Something went bad! Just asking. Just saying..
That looks scary. I hope there are no accidents due to this. Keep our school buses and drivers safe!
Definitely a poorly done and inadequate substrate under there. I’m with Commissioner Barry on this one.
This is also one reason independent and professional soil engineering companies should be part of the team. Our county inspectors just don’t have the career civil engineering experience necessary to be performing asphalt/roadway inspections. Did they do professional compaction and moisture tests? Where is the nuclear density report on file? Let’s make sure these tests are done properly this time.
The paving contractor’s liability insurance will cover this bu law, but it sure won’t relieve the hassle folks will experience while driving during more milling and rebuilding from the base up.
Looks like the sub-base was not properly constructed and possibly the tack was not applied properly. Poor job by the construction company.
So it obvious that the contractor did substandard work. The better question is, who was charged by the county with quality assurance compliance inspections for the job?
Of course, if you’re “driving RallyStyle”, you could make this aberration work to your advantage.
It looks like it was widened without the foundation being reinforced.
Typical sinkholes created by man that didn’t compact the sub-base material neither base on the roadway. Be careful or you may fall into a sinkhole and never return.
That says a lot about Escambia County’s own inspections and quality control. The road at the new bridge in Oak Grove on highway 99 seems to be holding up real good!
Shouldn’t Panhandle’s Commercial Insurance cover the cost of fixing it?
HUMMMMMMM……The county needs to sue!!!