Problems and solutions as hundreds of trucks roll through Conroe neighborhood

Imagine having hundreds of big rigs and dump trucks drive past your house every day. That’s what neighbors at the Bennett Estates in Conroe have dealt with for years.

FOX26 first covered the toll one sand mining business was taking on the residential community in February. Since then, positive change has come, but problems persist.

“I mean it’s just constant dump trucks from one sand pit to the other,” said Davis Bowden who lives on Walker Road in the Bennett Estates. “Families can’t take their kids for a walk down the street.”

LMI Proppants mines sand near the neighborhood. An attorney for one of the homeowners counted more than 250 trucks driving through the neighborhood each day on the way to and from LMI.

That changed last month. After years of petitioning, residents finally got positive news. LMI completed its own access road to Highway 1314 – separate from the residential roads.

“We are very happy,” said Brenda Schultz, who lives on Lyric Road in the Bennett Estates. “I can’t tell you how ecstatic I am.”

While truck traffic has gone down in the past few weeks for most residents, trucks were still going through the otherwise quiet neighborhood while FOX 26 cameras rolled Monday. In fact, neighbors say the traffic has increased on some streets, and it’s left East River Road ravaged.

“This is what our kids in school buses have to go through,” said Shultz while standing in an approximately 8-foot-wide, 1-foot-deep pothole on East River Road. “You could hit a pot hole just right and pop a kid out of a seat.”

“These trucks are creating substantial damage to our streets out here in Bennett," said Bowden. "The problem is the county won’t come out and fix it.”

FOX 26 asked the Montgomery County Precinct 4 Commissioner for comment and got no response, but after the FOX 26 crew arrived on the ground to speak with neighbors, a county road crew showed up and began filling potholes.

"Y’all need to come more often,” said Schultz, adding she'd been asking for the potholes to be fixed for years.