Campbell County Highway Department clears upwards of 75 trees

TOP PHOTO: This tree was across Cox Lane just off Little Cove Creek Road. “A backhoe had to be used to clear some of the bigger trees,” said Campbell County Road Superintendent Ron Dilbeck

JACKSBORO, TN (WLAF) – Campbell County Road Superintendent Ron Dilbeck always has two crews on call ready to respond. On Friday evening and overnight through Saturday, a total of 10 crews were in action clearing trees around the county.

“It appeared that most all of the downed trees were from Cumberland Mountain south toward Norris Lake. The south end of the county appeared to have had the most damage,” said Dilbeck. Trees were down and cleared in Demory, Cove Creek and Ridge Roads, Old Highway 63, Patty Hill, Jacksboro, Jacksboro Station, Queener Road, Vasper, Davis Chapel, Carr-Wynn Road, up the valley, Long Hollow and Pleasant Ridge Roads. A few trees of the upwards of 75 total were also cleared on the north side at White Oak and Stinking Creek Road.

“Our crews worked hard and non-stop, and I thank them for their outstanding effort and dedication. We thought we’d dodged the worst of it after clearing a few trees during the mid-day storms on Friday. Around 6pm is when it all hit,” said Dilbeck.

There was one time when we had 10 to 12 trees waiting to be cleared as about 20-25 calls of downed trees came in at one time, according to the road super. He goes on to say that two-thirds of the trees that fell were very big trees.

Dilbeck felt like it would have been a lot worse had there been leaves on the trees. “If that had been the case, we would have been talking about hundreds of downed trees, and this was bad enough” said Dilbeck.

“There are times a tree is down, and it’s not called in until someone discovers it. Such was the case Sunday as one last tree from the storm was found and cleared,” said Dilbeck. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED – 03/06/2023-6AM)