State rejects Holbrook barrier

It's been more than two years since a runaway semi-truck plowed through a mobile home park along Highway 395 near Holbrook Junction.

It's been more than two years since Holbrook Station resident Mark Adams awoke to a large, crashing sound in the early hours of July 11,2008, and soon discovered a commercial 18-wheeler twisted like a toy train atop a heap of debris where a front yard used to be.

He remembers rescue workers digging for 35 minutes into the splintering rubble, finally uncovering the broken body of 16-year-old Leticia Avalos, alive but paralyzed.

"I lie awake at night and hear trucks coming down the hill," Adams said. "It sends chills up my spine."

It's been more than two years since the accident, yet nothing has been done to protect the two dozen mobile homes in Holbrook Station, Adams said.

In February, he penned a letter to the Nevada Department of Transportation requesting a roadside barrier.

"I just want something done. I just want to lie in my home and feel safe," he said.

In April, Adams received a reply from the government.

"Based on national standards, a roadside barrier is not an appropriate installation at this location," NDOT Director Susan Martinovich wrote in a letter dated April 19. "The study requires complex analysis. Roadside barriers have a tendency to increase the frequency of accidents. When properly implemented at appropriate locations, median barriers can be useful in reducing the average severity of collisions. When improperly implemented, we risk unnecessarily increasing accident frequency. We will continue to monitor the area and will implement safety strategies as appropriate."

On Wednesday, NDOT spokesman Scott Magruder further questioned the fairness of burdening taxpayers with a barrier.

"Unfortunately, what happens is we have a highway that has been out there for years, and someone constructs a mobile home park," he said. "People have been there a long time, but is it fair for taxpayers to have to pay for a barrier, when probably it should have been put in in the first place when the park was constructed?"

According to the Douglas County Assessor's Office, Holbrook Station was built in 1976.

"It might befall on the county," Magruder said, "because then you're telling a private developer what they have to do. There are occasions when, yes, we require developers to put in some kind of road improvement, usually related to traffic impact."

Adams said the government's response amounts to a runaround. He said he's built his case not only on the truck accident, but a 2007 incident when a vehicle spun out on black ice and nearly clocked his fence.

"It was down in the trees behind me, right up against my fence," he said. "We just need something to stop or at least to slow down these vehicles."

When it comes to government services, however, Adams describes the Holbrook area as a no-man's land.

"This is the end of the world," he said in a previous R-C article, printed more than two years ago. "Nobody cares about Holbrook."