Some people who live along Cherry Hill Road in rural Horry County are not happy with the South Carolina Department of Transportation.
According to residents the agency tore up their road.
Esther Todd is not happy. She says when workers turned Cherry Hill Road into one that's more like a dirt road than a paved one.
Todd says, "They actually took a machine and beat up a perfectly good, paved road."
William Blackwell's lived off Cherry Hill his entire life. He says around 40 years ago the state paved it, but over the last month he says they've torn it up and left a rocky, dirty road. He didn't complain at first, but when the road didn't improve he contacted the SC DOT.
Blackwell says, "I was giving them an opportunity. I thought they were going to be coming back with an asphalt type cap or at least put our road back to what we had."
Blackwell says there was no reason to fix the road in the first place, "The DOT engineers keep saying there were potholes and problems on the road, but there were not."
Wednesday, Blackwell and other neighbors met with engineers from the SC DOT. They want the road restored, but they didn't get answers to many questions.
According to Blackwell, "We were praying and hoping those answers would be made today, but the only answer that came is, they're going to try to clean up the excess rock. This ride we're experiencing on the road, this is the final product."
DOT engineer Ray George tells us the method used to pave the road is common.
"Certainly understand their concerns about the ride of the road and the roughness, but that is one of the byproducts of the treatment we use. It's a triple treatment on the road. A lot of roads in the past were built with that very same method and have lasted fairly well, and we think this will too."
George says the road did not qualify for hot asphalt treatment. He says residents can petition the county for money to resurface the road.
We will continue to follow this story and let you know what happens.
