Chip-seal work closes Ferdinand roads, expect rolling delays next week

Chip-seal overlay work will shut down stretches of Ferdinand Road Northwest and Sunset Drive as the Dubois County Highway Department starts a three-day maintenance run Monday, June 29. Drivers should expect rolling closures, long delays and the need to use alternate routes while crews move through the corridor.

The work begins on Ferdinand Road Northwest near Industrial Park Road and continues onto Sunset Drive near U.S. 231. That puts two heavily used local roads in the county’s active work zone at once, affecting workers heading to industrial sites, residents making short trips in and around Ferdinand, and anyone connecting between town and larger county routes.

County officials are treating the job as routine maintenance, but it is the kind that can prevent larger problems later. Chip-seal work helps extend pavement life and can delay a more expensive rebuild, which is why the short-term inconvenience carries long-term value for a road network that is already under pressure from weather, traffic and funding demands.

The Ferdinand project lands inside a much larger county maintenance effort. The Dubois County Highway Department has 31 employees and is responsible for 660 miles of county roads, including 384 miles of hot-mix asphalt, 143 miles of chip-seal surface, 112 miles of gravel and 21 miles of dirt or fair-weather roads. The department also maintains 164 bridges over 20 feet long and more than 5,000 signs and markers.

Levi Leffert, the county highway engineer, said in April that Dubois County’s 2026 roadway treatment plan had been confirmed and would cover about 72.55 miles of roadway. That plan includes asphalt overlays, Rejuvtec applications, chip-seal patching, gravel-to-chip-seal conversions, chip-seal overlays and rubberized crack sealant. County road crews also handle mowing, brush cutting, ditch work, bridge and culvert replacement, paving, patching, surface treatment and striping during the spring and summer season.

The Ferdinand Road Northwest and Sunset Drive closure fits into a two-month roadwork season that began with chip-and-seal projects in early June and then shifted to overlays. Other county bridge and road projects on County Road 600 West, St. Anthony Road and Celestine Road North have been part of the same summer push, leaving drivers across Dubois County to watch for crews and plan ahead when they move through Ferdinand next week.