Portion of county road closed

By Staff
Jonathan Willis FCT Staff Writer
Travelers along one of Franklin County's most scenic routes will have to take another path as of Wednesday afternoon.
The section of county highway 81 that connects highway 83 and highway 91 across Cherry Hill Mountain is closed indefinitely, according to the Franklin County Highway Department.
Sections of the highway have been eroding for quite some time and recent weather developments have caused four sections of the road to begin to crumble.
The embankment along the west-bound lane has shifted and caused erosion that has led to the destruction of the surface.
The project to fix the road could be lengthy, depending on tests to reveal exactly what is causing the problem.
The failure envelope along the bank has caused trees and power poles along the hillside to lean and, in some cases, causing them to fall.
Signs and barricades have been placed at both ends of the closed section. It is a punishable offense if those signs are removed and someone gets injured along that section of roadway.
County highway 81 is a heavy traffic flow area that runs between highways 243 and 724, which was formerly known as Alabama highway 24.