“Construction” is the word of the day along Flagler County Road 305; on one end is a major bridge replacement project, which has closed the road going towards Volusia County, and on the other end, the first of three projects to replace box culverts.

Box culverts move water from one side of the road to the other, and the replacement for many of them is underway, closing the northern end of the road.

The timing isn't great, but the county has a very small window of opportunity, thanks to the vegetable growing season, which pretty much runs the calendar out here.

That means for those living in between the projects, they're dealing with detours.

“The 3.5 mile detour is all paved roads. They can get by that way. Nobody likes to do that, it's probably more convenient for them to take a couple of blocks of dirt road to get around,” said Flagler County Spokesman Carl Laundrie.

Beverly Uplinger and her husband Ron aren't fans of the timing of the projects or the detour, even going as far as writing a letter to Governor Rick Scott.

Yet the projects move forward.

While the current detour is along blacktop road, the Uplingers worry about the “what-ifs.” What if there's an evacuation due to a tropical storm and then there's an accident on the asphalt?

“If we have to evacuate and both ends are closed and if the dirt roads are closed, we're stuck. Everybody back here is stuck,” said Beverly Uplinger.

Friday afternoon a deluge all but washed out one of the main unpaved roads many people use as a shortcut around the detour.

County crews were still out here Monday morning working on packing the dirt down and making it passable.

The county's Laundrie adds, as road construction projects go, the culvert work will be done pretty fast to keep the detour headaches to a minimum.