The Overton County Highway Department will start using green signs to show roads that are maintained by the county.
Administrative Director Darwin Clark said all current road signs are green but now roads that are not official county roads, such as emergency purpose roads, will have brown signs. Clark said the change will make it easier for county employees, emergency personnel, and the public to identify which roads the county is supposed to manage.
“This is also going to help with identifications for folks like the, you know, goes out and does the surveyors, the folks that do those plats, they do real estate people (who) are selling property and land, they can look and if it’s got a brown sign then they know it’s not a county-maintained road.”
Clark said his department will put up new signs with the right colors as the old signs need to be replaced. Clark said part of the reason behind the change is to make things easier for all of the new people moving into the county.
“We know that the signs are getting harder and harder to keep identified,” Clark said. “We know that it can be a benefit to the people who are working on the roads, especially the emergency people.”
Clark said the plan will not cost the county any more money than if it went without the brown signs as it does now. Clark said the new identification will not change anything about the roads themselves or how they work.
“Here at the highway department I get calls every day from realtors and people from Vick Surveying or Bartlett Surveying or all these surveyors that are out doing these homes and wanting to know whether it’s a county road or is it a private road or is it an emergency purpose road only,” Clark said.
Clark said the county is not allowed to work on emergency roads or any other streets that are not on the official county road list.