Renville County officials say safety improvements have been made at deadly intersection

Renville County officials say they have made efforts to improve safety at a deadly intersection south of Danube.

Since 2013 five people have died as a result of crashes at the intersection of County Roads 1 and 4. The most recent took the life of 19-year-old Kadin Huntley of Montevideo who passed away August 29th after a crash the day before.

East-west traffic on 4 is supposed to stop, and Renville County Public Works Director and Highway Engineer Jeff Marlow says while no official traffic or crash study has been done at that intersection, they have put rumble strips in the pavement ahead of the stop signs and they have put up dual “stop ahead” signs. They have also put LED flashing stop signs up, under which are yellow signs stating “cross traffic does not stop.”

Marlowe says they have seen people running stop signs on County Road 4 not only at County Road 1 but also at County Road 5 and Highways 4 and 71. He said the Highway 71 detour added a lot of traffic to both County Roads 1 and 4, and that detour was lifted just before the Labor Day holiday weekend.

(JP Cola, KWLM)