County Road Sign Replacement – Daily Journal Online

St. Francois County has suffered a recent upturn in road sign damage and theft that has officials puzzled.

County Highway Administrator Clay Copeland noted that especially in July they’ve had a rash of roadway name signs, stop signs and different informational signs being stolen, destroyed and vandalized.

“It is causing an undue expense to the county, because every one of these signs is high reflectivity and high visibility, which we are federal mandated through the Department of Transportation, they average $50 each,” he said.

“Not only is it an expense, it is a danger to the local community. There may be a stop sign missing at an intersection, and someone is not familiar with that intersection and they drive through, it could cause an accident. Emergency services may not necessarily be familiar with a rural area, and the name signs on the roads are gone, they may miss the residence where they need to provide emergency services.”

Copeland said he doesn’t know why this is occurring at this time. “It’s county-wide, but it seems like it’s more prevalent south of Farmington; the Libertyville, Knob Lick area especially. It’s getting worse. We repair them as we are aware of them.”

The problem cropped up when Copeland reported to the commission during their regular meeting.

“We wanted the county commission and the county as a whole to be aware that it is occurring,” he said. “Some might not think it’s a serious thing, but if emergency services need to get to your residence because a sign is missing, or had an accident because a caution or a stop sign was down, then it would affect you.”

Copeland noted that sign replacement is an ongoing, year-round job, but the last couple of months they have been extremely busy.

“Some signs will be totally gone, some of the posts will be ran over, or they will pull them out of the ground and take them as well,” he said. “Even if the sign is still there, the damage is often too severe to repair and it has to be replaced. We are constantly spending money to replace these, not to mention the time, resources and labor of our equipment and our manpower to do this, as well.”

As metal prices are down, Copeland doesn’t think they are being stolen for scrap metal as has happened in the past.

“Most of our signs are aluminum,” he said. “Most of our scrap yards know to watch for that. They will flag that and not accept that or notify the authorities when they do come in.”

As the county signs are made to follow mandated federal guidelines, the regulation adds to the cost.

“We have them made,” Copeland said. “We don’t make them in house, due to the fact that we are mandated to follow federal guidelines of high visibility and high reflectivity. We don’t have the capabilities to make them and the equipment to make ourselves is not cost effective. We contract that out as an annual bid every year.”