They should have built a new road that only went through private properties and then declared it to be open access for the public.
Because rebuilding the road where it WAS was probably state-owned property, which you would think means 'of for and by the people' but it's not.
This government thinks there's a "ours" and then there's the rest of yours. Ours means the US gov is some kind of separate and NOT equal entity that has priority over you because they serve the greater 'good' which is greater number of people.
The NC and Fed gov will be extremely angry that these "yokels" built an improper road that isn't up to civil engineering codes and conventions, and they will want to dismantle it and rebuilt it. They will be mad they have to first undo it. They will punish someone for that. Maybe they will fine them 20k dollars a day while it's still there, placing the burden on the "yokels" to dismantle it.
It's a form of lawfare and collective punishment, and it's also a power move to show the public who is boss, because this will also block people who live there that are using this road for ingress/egress.
The bottom line is they should have built a private road thru CONTIGUOUS private property boundaries so that the US gov would not have any claim and would not be able to put up a wall even through a 1" piece of property, to block people from their properties
(Trust me they'd do it)
They can still do this now. They probably should do it.
NOW
Because the civil engineers are coming, and then the DOT is going to condemn it, and then the yokels will complain, and then the protesters will come, and then this NC area will be in the news cycle for a month about 6 mo from now
And it's going to force the question of whether or not 'we the people' can actually fix things in an emergency, or if the government is going to swing its karen cock around and make people suffer for it.
Bundy Ranch 2.0
I'm already exhausted thinking about it
Never ever underestimate the furious anger, jealousy and butthurt of US government bureaucrats that are disintermediated by the general public asserting their own agency and sovereignty with their own skills
BTW if I'm totally wrong about them building this road where it was, then let me know and I'll just remove this post because it won't be correct.
I live 10 mi from this area but I am unable to go there (road is closed), so I can't confirm this is where they put the road. I'm just going off the images, video of what I've seen. It looks like it's where the road was, but maybe shifted over 10-20'
You must not know the area. I've spent years in that area since I was a kid. My grandfather lived on the Qualla Boundary (reservation). The only sizable paved roads have to follow the rivers because that's the only part that isn't the side of a mountain. Sure there are small paved and dirt secondary roads leading up hollers or to a home but there's no way to build a road of any size on those hillsides. And those all basically lead to nowhere because all the towns are in valleys carved out by the rivers.