The Gheens have witnessed countless car wrecks since moving to Redmond in 2011 — all of which have occurred on their property.
“It’s happened five times since September [of this year],” Glenda Gheen said. “Once in September, one in October, one in November, and two in December.”
Their 36-acre property rests where Old Bend Redmond Highway and Canal Boulevard meet, just north of Young Avenue. The property straddles both sides of Canal Boulevard.
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Gheen says that section of road becomes slick in the winter. Cars slide off the road and into their fences and field equipment.
“It’s very slick. They don’t know the road. We need signage. We need a blinking light. We need cinders at that intersection at all times,” Gheen said.
Gheen has filed reports, detailing each incident with insurance companies. As of this writing, she has not yet filed complaints with the county.
The two most recent wrecks occurred last Thursday and Saturday. The former resulted in a triple rollover where the vehicle flew off the road, mangled two wheels on an irrigation sprinkler and a section of fencing. The driver survived with no serious injuries.
Replacing one of those wheels costs upward of $1,000. Fortunately for the Gheens, the driver had insurance, but that often isn’t the case.
“Most of the time we have to pay for it,” Gheen said. “The fencing we haven’t even checked into, but it’s gonna be quite a pretty penny, because there’s busted post, Bent T-post, and lots of fencing down.”
Gheen says they still find wreckage from accidents of years’ past. In 2013, a glass truck flipped over at the same location as the triple rollover accident.
“A glass truck was coming from Bend, came around the corner, and over 50,000 pounds of glass went into our field,” Gheen said.
She says they still find shards of glass from the incident, and a metal shard from the truck is impaled into a tree, serving as a permanent reminder.
