ELSANOR, Ala. — Be careful when driving down Ponderosa Farm Road West in Elsanor.

There’s a big hole, a washout, in the already-bumpy dirt road. Right now, there’s the broken yellow top of a child’s toy marking the spot.

So, how big is this hole?

It’s so big that a piece of Elsanor Volunteer Fire Department apparatus got stuck in the hole on the way to fight a fire late last month.

“My shed was burning,” said Leslie James Jeffrey, who lives on Ponderosa Farm Road West.

“It got hit by lightning the day after we had those tornadoes roll through,” said Jeffrey.

Jeffrey, his daughter Cherie Deck, next door, and Della Wright, another neighbor, say that while the road was not in the best shape before, the torrential rains from late March storms have made the road worse. Jeffrey says he’s loaded dirt onto the road before, but this job might be beyond him.

The Elsanor, Seminole and Elberta volunteer fire departments responded to the blaze, which destroyed Jeffrey’s shed and the contents inside. While Jeffrey, his wife, Mary, and their dog were not harmed, heat from the fire damaged the siding on the back of their home.

And it wasn’t a great feeling to see that fire truck stuck just a few hundred yards from his blazing shed.

And it could not be a good feeling for the firefighters, who could see the smoke and flame from their stuck truck

“No, that was not a good feeling,” agreed Elsanor Fire Chief Allen Paul, who added that he was already on the scene and his own vehicle, a four-wheel drive Expedition, had difficulty getting down the road. He missed the hole, more by luck than planning. Unaware of the obstacle, he went to the right, hoping to avoid what looked like a puddle.

“You really couldn’t see the hole because of all the water,” said Paul. “It was like a river.”

The tanker was actually the second piece of apparatus to hit the hole.

“The rescue truck hit it first, and messed up the wing guard plastic on the bottom of the truck,” said Paul. The department’s larger tanker was stuck for a while.

Paul said in a telephone interview that the truck eventually made it out under its own power.

That’s not what Deck recalls.

“They had to push it (the truck) out with another truck,” said Deck.

Other apparatus was available to fight the fire, Paul says.

The storm, Deck says, picked up a 28 by 26-foot garage and put it down on power lines along the road. Jeffrey believes there was a tornado in the area. He’s seen several living in Ohio and Texas.

In the meantime, getting the road into shape is on Deck’s, Jeffrey’s and Wright’s minds right now.

Some neighbors and visitors to the area are not helping, they say.

“People (living nearby) try to blow out the water by driving through the puddles, but they take the mud out, too,” said Jeffrey. “You have four-wheelers coming through, too.”

Getting the county to take action to maintain the road is going to take some work. Wright says the county says the road is a private road, but she is aware that the state paid back taxes on the property and gave the road to the county.

“The county says it (the road) does not belong to them,“ said Jeffrey.

That’s what Cal Markert, a Baldwin County engineer says.

“It’s not a county maintained road,” said Markert, adding that the county can’t work on private property. That means no sawhorses or signs to warn motorists or rescue vehicles of the hole.

In order for the county to take over maintenance of the road, the property owners along the road must agree and give the county a “right of way.”

While there is “some stuff going on” with exactly who owns the parcel the road is on, Markert does not think getting a right of way is “a big deal.”

Markert has given a petition to Jeffery and Jeffrey and Wright are going to work on getting the document signed by the property owners.

Markert, when asked for a “rough guesstimate” of what it will cost to get the road into shape, said it might take $30,000 to $40,000.

“That would be for ditches, base and gravel,” he said.

Another problem, Markert says, is that there is no money to repair Ponderosa Farm Road West at this time.

That isn’t going to stop Jeffrey, Wright and Deck.

“It’s miserable,” said Deck. “You can’t go anywhere without getting stuck.”

“It can be a matter of life and death,” said Wright. “If someone has a stroke or heart attack, how will the rescue get down here?”