Neighborhood street swallows delivery driver's car; 2OYS looks into problem on private street
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BATON ROUGE — A delivery driver has found herself in a hole, quite literally.
Renee Hoyt says she was making a grocery delivery along Stonegate Court when her car bottomed out in an enormous pothole she couldn't avoid.
"As I was going through here at about 5 mph I just hear this loud noise," Hoyt said.
When she tried to get the city to help with repairs to her vehicle, she ran into a dead end. A claim she filed with the city's adjuster was denied. Stonegate Court is a private road not maintained by the city.
Timothy Graves, who lives along the street, says he occasionally tries to maintain the street, mixing concrete and patching holes. Typically work falls to a homeowners' association, but the neighborhood doesn't have one.
"We've had talks about HOAs and stuff and no one wants to take up the presidency," Graves said. "I don't think that half the homeowners even realize that they own half of the road."
A barricade was erected about two years ago to warn drivers about some of the problems, but the city says it was put up in error and that it's up to the property owners to address the road's poor condition.
Meanwhile, Hoyt says she's waiting for an estimate on how much it will take to fix her car.