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Summit County Engineer Alan Brubaker, P.E., P.S. would like to draw attention to increasing financial pressures facing local infrastructure systems, as counties across the nation grapple with rising costs and constrained revenues. A recent opinion article published by Governing.com underscores these challenges, highlighting the growing gap between the need for safe, reliable roads and the funding available to maintain them.

Locally, the Summit County Engineer’s Office reflects this national trend. In 2025, the office operated with approximately $19 million in tax revenue and approximately $20 million in operating expenses and capital improvement projects.

Picture a grain elevator in rural Missouri on a harvest morning. A line of loaded semis snakes back a quarter-mile. Each loaded truck then travels county roads to reach the rail silo, the barge and the world market. The farmer’s margin — already thin — depends on that road holding under 80,000 pounds of corn.

Now picture that road after a wet spring: a frost-heave crack running shoulder to centerline. The county engineer knows it needs work. It’s been an issue for years. But the budget math no longer works.

Counties stand to receive a healthy infusion of funding to address bridges under the surface transportation bill, BUILD America 250 Act (H.R. 8870) passed May 22 on a bipartisan basis by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The five-year reauthorization includes a total of $580 billion, $30 billion more than 2021’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Estimates show that counties and other local governments will have access to 22 percent of funding in the bill, through formula set-asides, suballocation and discretionary grant opportunities, adding up to a 270% increase in funding for county-owned bridges, which could not come too soon, because more than 40,000 county-owned bridges are structurally deficient.

PEEBLES, Ohio — A rural, heavily wooded neighborhood near Peebles was cut off after severe flooding on Sunday submerged its only bridge, stranding residents who could not get in or out until Monday morning.

Frustrated residents said they have asked Adams County officials to replace the low-water bridge over Scioto Brush Creek for 30 years. The bridge is the only way to reach the homes of 15 to 20 residents, who live on Coffee Hollow and Saylor roads bordering the Brush Creek State Forest in Franklin Township.

Excessive rainfall in Clark County and surrounding areas caused flooding issues Wednesday, May 27, for local homeowners and forced the evacuation of one family from their home.

In Harmony Twp., Clark County, rescue crews from Harmony Twp. and Springfield Twp. used boats to rescue a man and dog from a flooded house, as well as two people who became trapped while trying to rescue them on East National near Bowman roads.

Springfield Twp. Fire Department Deputy Chief Jamie Allen said his crew initially was called out to rescue people along South Charleston Pike before they were called to assist with the East National Road rescue.