Rogers Road Washout

Here are some pictures of the 10/8/16 Rogers Road washout caused by Hurricane Matthew, as well as pictures of the repair work. Toward the end they worked seven days a week to repair the damage. This streams map will provide some location context.

The culvert replacement is much more elaborate than I had expected. They had to temporarily divert the creek using a large pipe, for which I guess they had to tunnel under the road. For a while they had what looked like a coffer dam around the work area. By mid November they had removed the old culvert and dug a wide, deep trench to hold the new, bigger culvert. In late November they laid the new culvert, including some large side pieces, not present on the old, much smaller culvert. But by the next day they had temporarily removed the side pieces and the main work seemed to stop. (Were the pieces sent back for repair?) The side pieces reappeared after a few days. Then work resumed to cover the pipe with fill, pack it down, put in riprap on the stream bed and sides, pave the road, stripe it, and lay down some straw covering on the roadsides.

On 12/5/16 Rogers Road reopened for traffic. And the litterers have definitely returned.

As of 12/11/16 there was still some utility work to be done; e.g., some large cables were lying near the road and across the creek. Shortly before 2/20/17, the remaining cables were either cut off or buried and the portable bathroom was removed.

To the east, near where the Sanford Creek trail exits at Rogers Road, there is a larger, but unnamed creek. The Flood Risk Information System (FRIS) designates it as {Basin 6, Stream 9}. That creek goes under Rogers Road using two, large, side-by-side culverts, which seemed to handle Hurricane Matthew with no damage to the road. Per FRIS, Sanford Creek by name doesn't begin until after {Basin 6, Stream 8} and {Basin 6, Stream 9} merge into {Basin 6, Stream 7} just south of Sanford Creek Ave.; that is over half a mile west of Rogers Road. In addition there are other streams (not shown on the streams map) merging from the south to eventually create Sanford Creek. All in all, it's a complicated system, including old "canals" (manmade?) between some of the streams.

The 10/8/16 washout stream {Basin 6, Stream 8} under Rogers Road is called Reedy Creek on the FRIS map. (You have to repeatedly click and drag the FRIS map to zoom in to an area south of Wake Forest; Panel 1759 shows "Reedy Creek".) However other maps, e.g., Google Maps and iMaps, already call it Sanford Creek when it goes under Rogers Road, although that is probably a premature name. This is before the downstream merge with the unlabeled {Basin 6, Stream 9}; after that merge there is no question the stream should be labeled "Sanford Creek" as it is in the FRIS map. There is a better known "Reedy Creek" in Cary, well south of here, with a nearby Reedy Creek Road, Reedy Creek Elementary and Middle Schools, etc. Meanwhile, on the Wake County maps web page there are some historic maps of Wake County in which the 1887 map seems to say that back in those days Sanford Creek was called Reedy Creek. I have asked FRIS several times about the "Reedy Creek" naming on their map, but have gotten no response. I don't have any idea how such name conflicts are resolved.

Where the unnamed {Basin 6, Stream 9} currently goes under Rogers Road using two culverts, there is some evidence of a past serious problem. On the hillside near where the twin culverts exit there are many large slabs of broken asphalt, presumably parts of the road torn up by a previous flood. You can find similar debris by the creek near the 2016 Rogers Road washout caused by {Basin 6, Stream 8}. I suspect that sometime before I moved to Wake Forest in 2013 there may have been a Rogers Road washout caused by {Basin 6, Stream 9}. As part of the repairs they may have replaced an old, small culvert with the two large culverts that are there today to increase the flow capacity. In contrast, to repair the {Basin 6, Stream 8} 2016 washout, they used one large, very wide culvert instead of two smaller circular culverts.

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